A hazard of new fortunes

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LIBRARY

UNIVWSITY OF

A HAZARD
OF NEW FORTUNES

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A HAZARD
OF NEW FORTUNES

W. D. HOWELLS

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

IDAN STACK

Copyright, 1889, by W. D. HOWELLS
Copyright, 1911, by HARPER & BROTHERS

ILLUSTEATIONS

W. D. HOWELLS (1888) WHEN WRITING "A HAZARD OF

NEW FORTUNES" (PHOTOGRAVURE) Frontispiece

THE VAST EDIFICE BEETLING LIKE A GRANITE CRAG

ABOVE THEM Facing p. 10

MARCH COMFORTED HIMSELF BY CALLING THE BRIC-A-
BRAC JAMESCRACKS 52

"ISN'T THIS MR. DRYFOOS FROM MOFFITT?" 100

"ISN'T THIS MR. LINDAU?" 104

WITH MELA'S HELP SHE WROTE A LETTER 362

FULKERSON HELPED HIM ON WITH HIS OVERCOAT . . 432

"BY HEAVENS! THIS is PILING IT UP!" " 468

353

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

THE following story was the first fruit of my New
York life when I began to live it after my quarter
of a century in Cambridge and Boston, ending in
1889 ; and I used my own transition to the com
mercial metropolis in framing the experience which
was wholly that of my supposititious literary adven
turer. He was a character whom, with his wife, I have
employed in some six or eight other stories, and whom
I made as much the hero and heroine of Their Wed
ding Journey as the slight fable would bear. In ventur
ing out of my adoptive New England, where I had found
myself at home with many imaginary friends, I found
it natural to ask the company of these familiar acquaint
ances, but their company was not to be had at once for
the asking. When I began speaking of them as Basil
and Isabel, in the fashion of Their Wedding Jour
ney, they would not respond with the effect of early
middle age which I desired in them. They remained
wilfully, not to say woodenly, the young bridal pair
of that romance, without the promise of novel function
ing. It was not till I tried addressing them as March
and Mrs. March that they stirred under my hand with
fresh impulse, and set about the work assigned them as
people in something more than their second youth.

The scene into which I had invited them to figure
filled the largest canvas I had yet allowed myself; and,
though A Hazard of New Fortunes was not the first

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

story I had written with the printer at my heels, it
was the first which took its own time to prescribe its
own dimensions. I had the general design well in mind
when I began to write it, but as it advanced it compelled
into its course incidents, interests, individualities,
which I had not known lay near, and it specialized
and amplified at points which I had not always meant
to touch, though I should not like to intimate anything
mystical in the fact. It became, to my thinking, the
most vital of my fictions, through my quickened inter
est in the life about me, at a moment of great psycho
logical import. We had passed through a period of
strong emotioning in the direction of the humaner eco
nomics, if I may phrase it so; the rich seemed not so
much to despise the poor, the poor did not so hopelessly
repine. The solution of the riddle of the painful earth
through the dreams of Henry George, through the
dreams of Edward Bellamy, through the dreams of
all the generous visionaries of the past, seemed not im
possibly far off. That shedding of blood which is for
the remission of sins had been symbolized by the bombs
and scaffolds of Chicago, and the hearts of those who
felt the wrongs bound up with our rights, the slavery
implicated in our liberty, were thrilling with griefs and
hopes hitherto strange to the average American breast.
Opportunely for me there was a great street-car strike
in New York, and the story began to find its way to
issues nobler and larger than those of the love-affairs
common to fiction. I was in my fifty-second year when
I took it up, and in the prime, such as it was, of my
powers. The scene which I had chosen appealed pro
digiously to me, and the action passed as nearly with
out my conscious agency as I ever allow myself to think
such things happen.

The opening chapters were written in a fine, old-

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

fashioned apartment house which had once been a fam
ily house, and in an uppermost room of which I could
look from my work across the trees of the little park
in Stuyvesant Square to the towers of St. George's
Church. Then later in the spring of 1889 the unfin
ished novel was carried to a country house on the Bel-
mont border of Cambridge. There I must have written
very rapidly to have pressed it to conclusion before the
summer ended. It came, indeed, so easily from the pen
that I had the misgiving which I always have of things
which do not cost me great trouble.

There is nothing in the book with which I amused
myself more than the house-hunting of the Marches
when they were placing themselves in New York ; and
if the contemporary reader should turn for instruction
to the pages in which their experience is detailed I as
sure him that he may trust their fidelity and accuracy in
the article of New York housing as it was early in the
last decade of the last century : I mean, the housing of
people of such moderate means as the Marches. In my
zeal for truth I did not distinguish between reality and
actuality in this or other matters — that is, one was as
precious to me as the other. But the types here
portrayed are as true as ever they were, though the
world in which they were finding their habitat is won
derfully, almost incredibly different Yet it is not
wholly different, for a young literary pair now adven
turing in New York might easily parallel the experience
of the Marches with their own, if not for so little
money; many phases of New York housing are better,
but all are dearer. Other aspects of the material citv
have undergone a transformation much more wonder
ful. I find that in my book its population is once mod
estly spoken of as two millions, but now in twenty years
it is twice as great, and the grandeur as well as grandi-

vii

BIBLIOGKAPHICAL

osity of its forms is doubly apparent. The transitional
public that then moped about in mildly tinkling horse-
cars is now hurried back and forth in clanging trolleys,
in honking and whirring motors; the Elevated road
which was the last word of speed is undermined by
the Subway, shooting its swift shuttles through the sub
terranean woof of the city's haste. From these feet
let the witness infer our whole massive Hercules, a
bulk that sprawls and stretches beyond the rivers
through the tunnels piercing their beds and that towers
into the skies with innumerable tops — a Hercules blent
of Briareus and Cerberus, but not so bad a monster as
it seemed then to threaten becoming.

Certain hopes of truer and better conditions on which
my heart was fixed twenty years ago are not less dear,
and they are by no means touched with despair, though
they have not yet found the fulfilment which I would
then have prophesied for them. Events have not wholly
played them false ; events have not halted, though they
have marched with a slowness that might affect a young
er observer as marking time. They who were then
mindful of the poor have not forgotten them, and what
is better the poor have not often forgotten themselves
in violences such as offered me the material of tragedy
and pathos in my story. In my quality of artist I could
not regret these, and I gratefully realize that they of
fered me the opportunity of a more strenuous action, a
more impressive catastrophe than I could have achieved
without them. They tended to give the whole fable
dignity and doubtless made for its success as a book.
As a serial it had crept a sluggish course before a pub
lic apparently so unmindful of it that no rumor of its
acceptance or rejection reached the writer during the
half year of its publication; but it rose in book form
from that failure and stood upon its feet and went its

viii

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

way to greater favor than any book of his had yet en
joyed. I hope that my recognition of the fact will
not seem like boasting, but that the reader will regard
it as a special confidence from the author and will let
it go no farther.

KITTEEY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Now, you think this thing over, March, and let
me know the last of next week," said Fulkerson. He
got up from the chair which he had been sitting astride,
with his face to its back, and tilting toward March
on its hind-legs, and came and rapped upon his table
with his thin bamboo stick. " What you want to do
is to get out of the insurance business, anyway. You
acknowledge that yourself. You never liked it, and
now it makes you sick ; in other words, it's killing you.
You ain't an insurance man by nature. You're a nat
ural-born literary man, and you've been going against
the grain. Now, I offer you a chance to go with the
grain. I don't say you're going to make your ever
lasting fortune, but I'll give you a living salary, and
if the thing succeeds you'll share in its success. We'll
all share in its success. That's the beauty of it. I tell
you, March, this is the greatest idea that has been struck
since " — Fulkerson stopped and searched his mind for
a fit image — " since the creation of man."

He put his leg up over the corner of March's table
and gave himself a sharp cut on the thigh, and leaned
forward to get the full effect of his words upon his
listener.

March had his hands clasped together behind his
head, and he took one of them down long enough to
2 3

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

put his inkstand and mucilage - bottle out of Fulker-
son's way. After many years' experiment of a mus
tache and whiskers, he now wore his grizzled beard
full, but cropped close ; it gave him a certain grimness,
corrected by the gentleness of his eyes.

" Some people don't think much of the creation
of man nowadays. Why stop at that? Why not say
since the morning stars sang together ?"

" No, sir ; no, sir ! I don't want to claim too much,
and I draw the line at the creation of man. I'm satis
fied with that. But if you want to ring the morning
stars into the prospectus all right; I won't go back
on you."

" But I don't understand why you've set your mind
on me" March said. " I haven't had any magazine
experience, you know that; and I haven't seriously
attempted to do anything in literature since I was
married. I gave up smoking and the Muse together.
I suppose I could still manage a cigar, but I don't
believe I could — "

" Muse worth a cent." Fulkerson took the thought
out of his mouth and put it into his own words. " I
know. Well, I don't want you to. I don't care if you
never write a line for the thing, though you needn't
reject anything of yours, if it happens to be good, on
that account. And I don't want much experience in
my editor; rather not have it. You told me, didn't
you, that you used to do some newspaper work before
you settled down ?"

"Yes; I thought my lines were permanently cast
in those places once. It was more an accident than
anything else that I got into the insurance business.
I suppose I secretly hoped that if I made my living
by something utterly different, I could come- more
freshly to literature proper in my leisure."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I see ; and you found the insurance business too
many for you. Well, anyway, you've always had a
hankering for the inkpots; and the fact that you first
gave me the idea of this thing shows that you've done
more or less thinking about magazines."

" Yes— less."

" Well, all right. Now don't you be troubled. I
know what I want, generally speaking, and in this
particular instance I want you. I might get a man
of more experience, but I should probably get a man
of more prejudice and self-conceit along with him, and
a man with a following of the literary hangers-on that
are sure to get round an editor sooner or later. I want
to start fair, and I've found out in the syndicate busi
ness all the men that are worth having. But they
know me, and they don't know you, and that's where
we shall have the pull on them. They won't be able
to work the thing. Don't you be anxious about the
experience. I've got experience enough of my own to
run a dozen editors. What I want is an editor who
has taste, and you've got it ; and conscience, and you've
got it; and horse sense, and you've got that. And
I like you because you're a Western man, and I'm
another. I do cotton to a Western man when I find
him off East here, holding his own with the best of 'em,
and showing 'em that he's just as much civilized as
they are. We both know what it is to have our bright
home in the setting sun ; heigh ?"

" I think we Western men who've come East are
apt to take ourselves a little too objectively and to
feel ourselves rather more representative than we need,"
March remarked.

Fulkerson was delighted. " You've hit it ! We do !
We are !"

" And as for holding my own, I'm not very proud

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of what I've done in that way; it's been very little
to hold. But I know what you mean, Fulkerson, and
I've felt the same thing myself; it warmed me toward
you when we first met. I can't help suffusing a little
to any man when I hear that he was born on the other
side of the Alleghanies. It's perfectly stupid. I de
spise the same thing when I see it in Boston people."

Fulkerson pulled first one of his blond whiskers
and then the other, and twisted the end of each into
a point, which he left to untwine itself. He fixed
March with his little eyes, which had a curious in
nocence in their cunning, and tapped the desk im
mediately in front of him. " What I like about you
is that you're broad in your sympathies. The first
time I saw you, that night on the Quebec boat, I said
to myself : ' There's a man I want to know. There's
a human being.' I was a little afraid of Mrs. March
and the children, but I felt at home with you — thor
oughly domesticated — before I passed a word with you ;
and when you spoke first, and opened up with a joke
over that fellow's tableful of light literature and Ind
ian moccasins and birch-bark toy canoes and stereo
scopic views, I knew that we were brothers — spiritual
twins. I recognized the Western style of fun, and I
thought, when you said you were from Boston, that it
was some of the same. But I see now that its being
a cold fact, as far as the last fifteen or twenty years
count, is just so much gain. You know both sections,
and you can make this thing go, from ocean to ocean."

" We might ring that inlo the prospectus, too,"
March suggested, with a smile. " You might call
the thing From Sea to Sea. By-the-way? what are
you going to call it ?"

" I haven't decided yet ; that's one of the things
I wanted to talk with you about. I had thought of

6

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

The Syndicate; but it sounds kind of dry, and doesn't
seem to cover the ground exactly. I should like some
thing that would express the co-operative character of
the thing, but I don't know as I can get it."

" Might call it The Mutual"

" They'd think it was an insurance paper. N"o, that
won't do. But Mutual comes pretty near the idea. If
we could get something like that, it would pique curi
osity; and then if we could get paragraphs afloat ex
plaining that the contributors were to be paid according
to the sales, it would be a first-rate ad."

He bent a wide, anxious, inquiring smile upon
March, who suggested, lazily : " You might call it
The Round - Robin. That would express the central
idea of irresponsibility. As I understand, everybody
is to share the profits and be exempt from the losses.
Or, if I'm wrong, and the reverse is true, you might
call it The Army of Martyrs. Come, that sounds at
tractive, Fulkerson! Or what do you think of The
Fifth Wheel? That would forestall the criticism that
there are too many literary periodicals already. Or,
if you want to put forward the idea of complete in
dependence, you could call it The Free Lance; or — "

" Or The Hog on Ice — either stand up or fall down,
you know," Fulkerson broke in coarsely. " But we'll
leave the name of the magazine till we get the editor.
I see the poison's beginning to work in you, March;
and if I had time I'd leave the result to time. But I
haven't. I've got to know inside of the next week.
To come down to business with you, March, I shaVt
start this thing unless I can get you to take hold of it."

He seemed to expect some acknowledgment, and
March said, "Well, that's very nice of you, Fulker
son."

" No, sir ; no, sir ! I've always liked you and wanted

7

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

you ever since we met that first night. I had this thing
inchoatelj in my mind then, when I was telling yon
about the newspaper syndicate business — beautiful vi
sion of a lot of literary fellows breaking loose from
the bondage of publishers and playing it alone —

" You might call it The Lone Hand; that would be
attractive/' March interrupted. " The whole West
would know what you meant."

Fulkerson was talking seriously, and March was lis
tening seriously; but they both broke off and laughed.
Fulkerson got down off the table and made some turns
about the room. It was growing late; the Octo
ber sun had left the top of the tall windows; it was
still clear day, but it would soon be twilight; they had
been talking a long time. Fulkerson came and stood
with his little feet wide apart, and bent his little lean,
square face on March. " See here ! How much do
you get out of this thing here, anyway ?"

" The insurance business ?" March hesitated a mo
ment and then said, with a certain effort of reserve,
" At present about three thousand." He looked up at
Fulkerson with a glance, as if he had a mind to en
large upon the fact, and then dropped his eyes without
saying more.

Whether Fulkerson had not thought it so much or
not, he said : " Well, I'll give you thirty-five hundred.
Come ! And your chances in the success."

" We won't count the chances in the success. And
I don't believe thirty-five hundred would go any further
in New York than three thousand in Boston."

" But you don't live on three thousand here ?"

" "No ; my wife has a little property."

" Well, she won't lose the income if you go to New
York. I suppose you pay ten or twelve hundred a year
for your house here. You can get plenty of flats in

8

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

New York for the same money; and I understand you
can get all sorts of provisions for less than you pay
now — three or four cents on the pound. Come I"

This was by no means the first talk they had had
about the matter; every three or four months during
the past two years the syndicate man had dropped in
upon March to air the scheme and to get his impres
sions of it. This had happened so often that it had
come to be a sort of joke between them. But now
Fulkerson clearly meant business, and March had a
struggle to maintain himself in a firm poise of refusal.

" I dare say it wouldn't — or it needn't — cost so very
much more, but I don't want to go to New York; or
my wife doesn't. It's the same thing."

" A good deal samer," Fulkerson admitted.

March did not quite like his candor, and he went
on with dignity. " It's very natural she shouldn't.
She has always lived in Boston; she's attached to the
place. Now, if you were going to start The Fifth
Wheel in Boston — "

Fulkerson slowly and sadly shook his head, but de
cidedly. " Wouldn't do. You might as well say St.
Louis or Cincinnati. There's only one city that belongs
to the whole country, and that's N"ew York."

" Yes, I know," sighed March ; " and Boston belongs
to the Bostonians, but they like you to make yourself
at home while you're visiting."

" If you'll agree to make phrases like that, right
along, and get them into The Round-Robin somehow,
I'll say four thousand," said Fulkerson. " You think
it over now, March. You talk it over with Mrs.
March; I know you will, anyway; and I might as
well make a virtue of advising you to do it. Tell her
I advised you to do it, and you let me know before

next Saturday what you've decided."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

March shut down the rolling top of his desk in the
corner of the room, and walked Fulkerson out before
him. It was so late that the last of the chore-women
who washed down the marble halls and stairs of the
great building had wrung out her floor-cloth and de
parted, leaving spotless stone and a clean, damp smell
in the darkening corridors behind her.

" Couldn't offer you such swell quarters in New
York, March," Fulkerson said, as he went tack-tacking
down the steps with his small boot-heels. " But I've
got my eye on a little house round in West Eleventh
Street that I'm going to fit up for my bachelor's hall
in the third story, and adapt for The Lone Hand in
the first and second, if this thing goes through ; and I
guess we'll be pretty comfortable. It's right on the
Sand Strip — no malaria of any kind."

" I don't know that I'm going to share its salubrity
with you yet," March sighed, in an obvious travail
which gave F^ulkerson hopes.

" Oh yes, you are," he coaxed. " Now, you talk it
over with your wife. You give her a fair, unprej
udiced chance at the thing on its merits, and I'm very
much mistaken in Mrs. March if she doesn't tell you
to go in and win. We're bound to win !"

They stood on the outside steps of the vast edifice
beetling like a granite crag above them, with the stone
groups of an allegory of life-insurance foreshortened
in the bas-relief overhead. March absently lifted his
eyes to it. It was suddenly strange after so many
years' familiarity, and so was the well-known street in
its Saturday-evening solitude. He asked himself, with
prophetic homesickness, if it were an omen of what
was to be. But he only said, musingly: " A fortnight
ly. You know that didn't work in England. The

Fortnightly is published once a month now."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" It works in France," Fulkerson retorted. " Tlie
Revue des Deux Mondes is still published twice a
month. I guess we can make it work in America —
with illustrations."

" Going to have illustrations ?"

" My dear boy ! What are you giving me ? Do I
look like the sort of lunatic who would start a thing
in the twilight of the nineteenth century without illus
trations ? Come off 1"

" Ah, that complicates it ! I don't know anything
about art." March's look of discouragement confessed
the hold the scheme had taken upon him.

" I don't want you to !" Fulkerson retorted. " Don't
you suppose I shall have an art man ?"

" And will they — the artists — work at a reduced
rate, too, like the writers, with the hopes of a share
in the success ?"

" Of course they will ! And if I want any par
ticular man, for a card, I'll pay him big money be
sides. But I can get plenty of first-rate sketches on
my own terms. You'll see ! They'll pour in !"

" Look here, Fulkerson," said March, " you'd better
call this fortnightly of yours The Madness of the Half-
Moon; or Bedlam Broke Loose wouldn't be bad ! Why
do you throw away all your hard earnings on such a
crazy venture? Don't do it!" The kindness which
March had always felt, in spite of his wife's first mis
givings and reservations, for the merry, hopeful, slangy,
energetic little creature trembled in his voice. They
had both formed a friendship for Fulkerson during
the week they were together in Quebec. When he was
not working the newspapers there, he went about with
them over the familiar ground they were showing their
children, and was simply grateful for the chance, as
well as very entertaining about it all. The children

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

liked him, too ; when the;y got the clew to his intention,
and found that he was not quite serious in many of
the things he said, they thought he was great fun.
They were always glad when their father brought him
home on the occasion of Fulkerson' s visits to Boston;
and Mrs. March, though of a charier hospitality, wel
comed Fulkerson with a grateful sense of his admira
tion for her husband. He had a way of treating March
with deference, as an older and abler man, and of
qualifying the freedom he used toward every one with
an implication that March tolerated it voluntarily,
which she thought very sweet and even refined.

" Ah, now you're talking like a man and a brother,"
said Fulkerson. " Why, March, old man, do you sup
pose I'd come on here and try to talk you into this
thing if I wasn't morally, if I wasn't perfectly, sure
of success? There isn't any if or and about it. I
know my ground, every inch; and I don't stand alone
on it," he added, with a significance which did not
escape March. "When you've made up your mind I
can give you the proof; but I'm not at liberty now to
say anything more. I tell you it's going to be a tri
umphal march from the word go, 'with coffee and lemon
ade for the procession along the whole line. All you've
got to do is to fall in." He stretched out his hand to
March. " You let me know as soon as you can."

March deferred taking his hand till he could ask,
" Where are you going ?"

"Parker House. Take the eleven for New York
to-night."

" I thought I might walk your way." March looked
at his watch. "But I shouldn't have time. Good
bye!"

He now let Fulkerson have his hand, and they ex
changed a cordial pressure. Fulkerson started away

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

at a quick, light pace. Half a block off he stopped*
turned round, and, seeing March still standing where
he had left him, he called back, joyously, " I've got the
name !"

"What?"

" Every Other Week."

" It isn't bad."

" Ta-ta !"

II

ALL the way up to the South End March mentally
prolonged his talk with Fulkerson, and at his door in
Nankeen Square he closed the parley with a plump
refusal to go to New York on any terms. His daugh
ter Bella was lying in wait for him in the hall, and she
threw her arms round his neck with the exuberance of
her fourteen years and with something of the histrionic
intention of her sex. lie pressed on, with her clinging
about him, to the library, and, in the glow of his de
cision against Fulkerson, kissed his wife, where she sat
by the study lamp reading the Transcript through her
first pair of eye - glasses : it was agreed in the family
that she looked distinguished in them, or, at any rate,
cultivated. She took them off to give him a glance of
question, and their son Tom looked up from his book
for a moment; he was in his last year at the high-
school, and was preparing for Harvard.

" I didn't get away from the office till half - past
five," March explained to his wife's glance, " and then
I walked. I suppose dinner's waiting. I'm sorry, but
I won't do it any more."

At table he tried to be gay with Bella, who babbled
at him with a voluble pertness which her brother had
often advised her parents to check in her, unless they
wanted her to be universally despised.

" Papa !" she shouted at last, " you're not listening!"

As soon as possible his wife told the children they

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

might be excused. Then she asked, " What is it,
Basil ?"

" What is what ?" he retorted, with a specious bright
ness that did not avail.

" What is on your mind ?"

" How do you know there's anything ?"

" Your kissing me so when you came in, for one
thing."

" Don't I always kiss you when I come in ?"

" Not now. I suppose it isn't necessary any more.
Cela va sans kaiser."

" Yes, I guess it's so ; wre get along without the sym
bolism now." He stopped, but she knew that he had
not finished.

"Is it about your business ? Have they done any
thing more?"

" No ; I'm still in the dark. I don't know whether
they mean to supplant me, or whether they ever did.
But I wasn't thinking about that. Fulkerson has been
to see me again."

" Fulkerson ?" She brightened at the name, and
March smiled, too. " Why didn't you bring him to
dinner ?"

" I wanted to talk with you. Then you do like
him ?"

" What has that got to do with it, Basil ?"

" Nothing ! nothing ! That is, he was boring away
about that scheme of his again. He's got it into definite
shape at last."

"What shape?"

March outlined it for her, and his wife seized its
main features with the intuitive sense of affairs which
makes women such good business-men when they will
let it.

" It sounds perfectly crazy," she said, finally. " But

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

it mayn't be. The only thing I didn't like about Mr.
Fulkerson was his always wanting to chance things.
But what have you got to do with it?"

"What have I got to do with it?" March toyed
with the delay the question gave him; then he said,
with a sort of deprecatory laugh : " It seems that Ful
kerson has had his eye on me ever since we met that
night on the Quebec boat. I opened tip pretty freely
to him, as you do to a man you never expect to see
again, and when I found he was in that newspaper
syndicate business I told him about my early literary
ambitions — "

" You can't say that I ever discouraged them, Basil,"
his wife put in. " I should have been willing, any
time, to give up everything for them."

" Well, he says that I first suggested this brilliant
idea to him. Perhaps I did ; I don't remember. When
he told me about his supplying literature to newspapers
for simultaneous publication, he says I asked : l Why
not apply the principle of co-operation to a magazine,
and run it in the interest of the contributors ?' and that
set him to thinking, and he thought out his plan of a
periodical which should pay authors and artists a low
price outright for their work and give them a chance
of the profits in the way of a percentage. After all, it
isn't so very different from the chances an author takes
when he publishes a book. And Fulkerson thinks that
the novelty of the thing would pique public curiosity,
if it didn't arouse public sympathy. 'And the long
and short of it is, Isabel, that he wants me to help
edit it."

"To edit it?" His wife caught her breath, and
she took a little time to realize the fact, while she
stared hard at her husband to make sure he was not
joking.

10

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Yes. He says lie owes it all to me ; that I in
vented the idea — the germ — the microbe."

His wife had now realized the fact, at least in a
degree that excluded trifling with it. " That is very
honorable of Mr. Fulkerson ; and if he owes it to you,
it was the least he could do." Having recognized her
husband's claim to the honor done him, she began to
kindle with a sense of the honor itself and the value of
the opportunity. " It's a very high compliment to
you, Basil — a very high compliment. And you could
give up this wretched insurance business that you've
always hated so, and that's making you so unhappy
now that you think they're going to take it from you.
Give it up and take Mr. Fulkerson's offer ! It's a per
fect interposition, coming just at this time! Why,
do it ! Mercy !" she suddenly arrested herself, " he
wouldn't expect you to get along on the possible
profits?" Her face expressed the awfulness of the
notion.

March smiled reassuringly, and waited to give him
self the pleasure of the sensation he meant to give her.
" If I'll make striking phrases for it and edit it, too,
he'll give me four thousand dollars."

He leaned back in his chair, and stuck his hands
deep into his pockets, and watched his wife's face,
luminous with the emotions that flashed through her
mind — doubt, joy, anxiety.

" Basil ! You don't mean it ! Why, lake it! Take
it instantly! Oh, what a thing to happen! Oil, what
luck! But you deserve it, if you first suggested it.
What an escape, what a triumph over all those hate
ful insurance people! Oh, Basil, I'm afraid he'll
change his mind ! You ought to have accepted on the
spot. You might have known I would approve, and
you could so easily have taken it back if I didn't. Tele-

17

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

graph him now! Run right out with the despatch!
Or we can send Tom I"

In these imperatives of Mrs. March's there was al
ways much of the conditional. She meant that he
should do what she said, if it were entirely right;
and she never meant to be considered as having urged
him.

" And suppose his enterprise went wrong ?" her hus
band suggested.

" It won't go wrong. Hasn't he made a success of
his syndicate ?"

" He says so — yes."

" Very well, then, it stands to reason that he'll suc
ceed in this, too. He wouldn't undertake it if he didn't
know it would succeed ; he must have capital."

" It will take a great deal to get such a thing going ;
and even if he's got an Angel behind him — "

She* caught at the word — " An Angel ?"

" It's what the theatrical people call a financial
backer. He dropped a hint of something of that
kind."

" Of course, he's got an Angel," said his wife, prompt
ly adopting the word. " And even if he hadn't* still,
Basil, I should be willing to have you risk it. The
risk isn't so great, is it? We shouldn't be ruined if
it failed altogether. With our stocks we have two
thousand a year, anyway, and we could pinch through
on that till you got into some other business afterward,
especially if we'd saved something out of your salary
while it lasted. Basil, I want you to try it! I know
it will give you a new lease of life to have a congenial
occupation." March laughed, but his wife persisted.
" I'm all for your trying it, Basil ; indeed I am. If
it's an experiment, you can give it up."

" It can give me up, too."

18

A HAZARD OF NEW FOETUNES

" Oh, nonsense ! I guess there's not much fear of
that. Now, I want you to telegraph Mr. Fulkerson,
so that he'll find the despatch ivaiting for him when
he gets to New York. I'll take the whole responsibility,
Basil, and I'll risk all the consequences."
3

Ill

MARCH'S face had sobered more and more as she
followed one hopeful burst with another, and now it
expressed a positive pain. But he forced a smile and
said : " There's a little condition attached. Where did
you suppose it was to be published ?"

" Why, in Boston, of course. Where else should it
be published ?"

She looked at him for the intention of his question
so searchingly that he quite gave up the attempt to
be gay about it. " No," he said, gravely, " it's to be
published in New York."

She fell back in her chair. " In New York?" She
leaned forward over the table toward him, as if to make
sure that she heard aright, and said, with all the keen
reproach that he could have expected : " In New York,
Basil ! Oh, how could you have let me go on ?"

He had a sufficiently rueful face in owning: "I
oughtn't to have done it, but I got started wrong. I
couldn't help putting the best foot forward at first —
or as long as the whole thing was in the air. I didn't
know that you would take so much to the general enter
prise, or else I should have mentioned the New York
condition at once; but, of course, that puts an end
to it."

" Oh, of course," she assented, sadly. " We couldn't
go to New York."

" No, I know that," he said ; and with this a per-

20

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

verse desire to tempt her to the impossibility awoke
in him, though he was really quite cold about the affair
himself now. " Fulkerson thought we could get a nice
Hat in New York for about what the interest and taxes
came to here, and provisions are cheaper. But I should
rather not experiment at my time of life. If I could
have been caught younger, I might have been inured
to New York, but I don't believe I could stand it now."

" How I hate to have you talk that way, Basil !
You are young enough to try anything — anywhere ;
but you know I don't like New York. I don't ap
prove of it. It's so big, and so hideous! Of course I
shouldn't mind that; but I've always lived in Boston,
and the children were born and have all their friend
ships and associations here." She added, with the help
lessness that discredited her good sense and did her in
justice, " I have just got them both into the Friday
afternoon class at Papanti's, and you know how dif
ficult that is."

March could not fail to take advantage of an occa
sion like this. " Well, that alone ought to settle it.
Under the circumstances, it would be flying in the face
of Providence to leave Boston. The mere fact of a
brilliant opening like that offered me on The Microbe,
and the halcyon future which Fulkerson promises if
we'll come to New York, is as dust in the balance
against the advantages of the Friday afternoon class."

" Basil," she appealed, solemnly, " have I ever in
terfered with your career?"

" I never had any for you to interfere with, my
dear."

" Basil ! Haven't I always had faith in you ? And
don't you suppose that if I thought it would really be
for your advancement I would go to New York or any
where with you?"

21

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No, my dear, I don't," he teased. " If it would
be for my salvation, yes, perhaps ; but not short of that ;
and I should have to prove by a cloud of witnesses that
it would. I don't blame you. I wasn't born in Boston,
but I understand how you feel. And really, my dear,"
he added, without irony, " I never seriously thought of
asking you to go to New York. I was dazzled by Ful-
kerson's offer, I'll own that; but his choice of me as
editor sapped my confidence in him."

" I don't like to hear you say that, Basil," she en
treated.

" Well, of course there were mitigating circum
stances. I could see that Fulkerson meant to keep
the whip-hand himself, and that was reassuring. And,
besides, if the Reciprocity Life should happen not to
want my services any longer, it wouldn't be quite like
giving up a certainty ; though, as a matter of business,
I let Fulkerson get that impression ; I felt rather sneak
ing to do it. But if the worst comes to the worst, I
can look about for something to do in Boston; and,
anyhow, people don't starve on two thousand a year,
though it's convenient to have five. The fact is, I'm
too old to change so radically. If you don't like my
saying that, then you are, Isabel, and so are the chil
dren. I've no right to take them from the home we've
made, and to change the whole course of their lives,
unless I can assure them of something, and I can't
assure them of anything. Boston is big enough for us,
and it's certainly prettier than New York. I always
feel a little proud of hailing from Boston ; my pleasure
in the place mounts the farther I get away from it.
But I do appreciate it, my dear; I've no more desire
to leave it than you have. You may be sure that if
you don't want to take the children out of the Friday
afternoon class, I don't want to leave my library here,

22

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

and all the ways I've got set in. We'll keep on. Very
likely the company won't supplant me, and if it does,
and Watkins gets the place, he'll give me a subordinate
position of some sort. Cheer up, Isabel ! I have put
Satan and his angel, Fulkerson, behind me, and it's
all right. Let's go in to the children."

He came round the table to Isabel, where she sat
in a growing distraction, and lifted her by the waist
from her chair.

She sighed deeply. " Shall we tell the children
about it?"

" No. What's the use, now ?"

" There wouldn't be any," she assented. When they
entered the family room, where the boy and girl sat
on either side of the lamp working out the lessons for
Monday which they had left over from the day before,
she asked, " Children, how would you like to live in
New York ?"

Bella made haste to get in her word first. " And
give up the Friday afternoon class?" she wailed.

Tom growled from his book, without lifting his eyes :
" I shouldn't want to go to Columbia. They haven't
got any dormitories, and you have to board round any
where. Are you going to New York?" He now
deigned to look up at his father.

" No, Tom. You and Bella have decided me against
it. Your perspective shows the affair in its true pro
portions. I had an offer to go to New York, but I've
refused it."

IV

MARCH'S irony fell harmless from the children's pre
occupation with their own affairs, but he knew that bis
wife felt it, and this added to the bitterness which
prompted it. He blamed her for letting her provincial
narrowness prevent his accepting Fulkerson's offer quite
as much as if he had otherwise entirely wished to ac
cept it. His world, like most worlds, had been super
ficially a disappointment. He was no richer than at
the beginning, though in marrying he had given Tip
some tastes, some preferences, some aspirations, in the
hope of indulging them later, with larger means and
larger leisure. His wife had not urged him to do it;
in fact, her pride, as she said, \vas in his fitness for the
life he had renounced ; but she had acquiesced, and they
had been very happy together. That is to say, they
made up their quarrels or ignored them.

They often accused each other of being selfish and
indifferent, but she knew that he would always sacrifice
himself for her and the children; and he, on his part,
with many gibes and mockeries, wholly trusted in her.
They had grown practically tolerant of each other's
disagreeable traits; and the danger that really threat
ened them was that they should grow too well satisfied
with themselves, if not with each other. They were
not sentimental, they were rather matter-of-fact in their
motives; but they had both a sort of humorous fond
ness for sentimentality. They liked to play with the

24

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

romantic, from the safe vantage-ground of their real
practicality, and to divine the poetry of the common
place. Their peculiar point of view separated them
from most other people, with whom their means of self-
comparison were not so good since their marriage as
before. Then they had travelled and seen much of
the world, and they had formed tastes which they had
not always been able to indulge, but of which they felt
that the possession reflected distinction on them. It
enabled them to look down upon those who were with
out such tastes; but they were not ill-natured, and so
they did not look down so much with contempt as with
amusement. In their unfashionable neighborhood they
had the fame of being not exclusive precisely, but very
much wrapped up in themselves and their children.

Mrs. March was reputed to be very cultivated, and
Mr. March even more so, among the simpler folk
around them. Their house had some good pictures,
which her aunt had brought home from Europe in more
affluent clays, and it abounded in books on which he
spent more than he ought. They had beautified it in
every way, and had unconsciously taken credit to them
selves for it. They felt, with a glow almost of virtue,
how perfectly it fitted their lives and their children's,
and they believed that somehow it expressed their
characters — that it was like them. They went out
very little; she remained shut up in its refinement,
working the good of her own : and he went to his busi
ness, and hurried back to forget it, and dream his dream
of intellectual achievement in the flattering atmosphere
of her sympathy. He could not conceal from himself
that his divided life was somewhat like Charles Lamb's,
and there were times when, as he had expressed to Ful-
kerson, he believed that its division was favorable to
the freshness of his interest in literature. It certainly

25

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

kept it a high privilege, a sacred refuge. Now and
then he wrote something, and got it printed after long
delays, and when they met on the St. Lawrence Fulker-
son had some of March's verses in his pocket - book,
which he had cut out of a stray newspaper and carried
about for years, because they pleased his fancy so
much; they formed an immediate bond of union be
tween the men when their authorship was traced and
owned, and this gave a pretty color of romance to their
acquaintance. But, for the most part, March was satis
fied to read. He was proud of reading critically, and
he kept in the current of literary interests and con
troversies. It all seemed to him, and to his wife at
second-hand, very meritorious; he could not help con
trasting his life and its inner elegance with that of
other men who had no such resources. He thought that
he was not arrogant about it, because he did full justice
to the good qualities of those other people; he con
gratulated himself upon the democratic instincts which
enabled him to do this; and neither he nor his wife
supposed that they were selfish persons. On the con
trary, they were very sympathetic; there was no good
cause that they did not wish well ; they had a generous
scorn of all kinds of narrow-heartedness ; if it had ever
come into their wray to sacrifice themselves for others,
they thought they would have done so, but they never
asked why it had not come in their way. They were
very gentle and kind, even when most elusive; and
they taught their children to loathe all manner of so
cial cruelty. March was of so watchful a conscience
in some respects that he denied himself the pensive
pleasure of lapsing into the melancholy of unfulfilled
aspirations ; but he did not see that, if he had abandoned
them, it had been for what he held dearer; generally
he felt as if he had turned from them with a high,

26

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

altruistic aim. The practical expression of his life was
that it was enough to provide well for his family ; to
have cultivated tastes, and to gratify them to the ex
tent of his means; to be rather distinguished, even in
the simplification of his desires. He believed, and his
wife believed, that if the time ever came when he
really wished to make a sacrifice to the fulfilment of the
aspirations so long postponed, she would be ready to
join with heart and hand.

When he went to her room from his library, where
she left him the whole evening with the children, he
found her before the glass thoughtfully removing the
first dismantling pin from her back hair.

" I can't help feeling," she grieved into the mirror,
" that it's I who keep you from accepting that offer.
I know it is! I could go West with you, or into a
new country — anywhere; but New York terrifies me.
I don't like New York, I never did ; it disheartens and
distracts me ; I can't find myself in it ; I shouldn't know
how to shop. I know I'm foolish and narrow and
provincial," she went on, " but I could never have any
inner quiet in New York ; I couldn't live in the spirit
there. I suppose people do. It can't be that all those
millions — "

" Oh, not so bad as that !" March interposed, laugh
ing. " There aren't quite two."

" I thought there were four or five. Well, no matter.
You see what I am, Basil. I'm terribly limited. I
couldn't make my sympathies go round two million
people ; I should be wretched. I suppose I'm standing
in the way of your highest interest, but I can't help
it. We took each other for better or worse, and you
must try to bear with me — ' She broke off and began
to cry.

" Stop it !" shouted March. " I tell you I never

27

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

cared anything for Fulkerson's scheme or entertained
it seriously, and I shouldn't if he'd proposed to carry
it out in Boston." This was not quite true, but in the
retrospect it seemed sufficiently so for the purposes4
of argument. " Don't say another word about it. The
thing's over now, and I don't want to think of it any
more. We couldn't change its nature if we talked all
night. But I want you to understand that it isn't your
limitations that are in the way. It's mine. I shouldn't
have the courage to take such a place; I don't think
I'm fit for it, and that's the long and short of it."

" Oh, you don't know how it hurts me to have you
say that, Basil."

The next morning, as they sat together at break
fast, without the children, whom they let lie late on
Sunday, Mrs. March said to her husband, silent over
his fish-balls and baked beans : " We will go to New
York. I've decided it."

" Well, it takes two to decide that," March retorted.
" We are not going to New York."

" Yes, we are. I've thought it out. Now, listen."

" Oh, I'm willing to listen," he consented, airily.

" You've always wanted to get out of the insurance
business, and now with thaE fear of being turned out
which you have you mustn't neglect this offer. I sup
pose it has its risks, but it's a risk keeping on as we
are; and perhaps you will make a great success of it.
I do want you to try, Basil. If I could once feel that
you had fairly seen what you could do in literature, I
should die happy."

" Not immediately after, I hope," he suggested, tak
ing the second cup of coffee she had been pouring out
for him. " And Boston ?"

" We needn't make a complete break. Wo can keep

28

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

this place for the present, anyway; we could let it for
the winter, and come back in the summer next year.
it would be change enough from New York."

" Fulkerson and I hadn't got as far as to talk of a
vacation."

" No matter. The children and I could come. And
if you didn't like New York, or the enterprise failed,
you could get into something in Boston again ; and we
have enough to live on till you did. Yes, Basil, I'm
going."

" I can see by the way your chin trembles that noth
ing could stop you. You may go to New York if you
wisli, Isabel, but I shall stay here."

" Be serious, Basil. I'm in earnest."

" Serious ? If I were any more serious I should
shed tears. Come, my dear, I know what you mean,
and if I had my heart set on this thing — Fulkerson
always calls it £ this thing ' — I would cheerfully accept
any sacrifice you could make to it. But I'd rather not
offer you up on a shrine I don't feel any particular
faith in. I'm very comfortable where I am ; that is,
I know just where the pinch comes, and if it comes
harder, why, I've got used to bearing that kind of
pinch. I'm too old to change pinches."

" Now, that does decide me."

" It decides me, too."

" I will take all the responsibility, Basil," she
pleaded.

" Oh yes ; but you'll hand it back to me as soon as
you've carried your point with it. There's nothing
mean about you, Isabel, where responsibility is con
cerned. No; if I do this thing — Fulkerson again! I
can't get away from i this thing ' ; it's ominous — I must-
do it because I want to do it, and not because you wish
that you wanted me to do it. I understand your posi-

29

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

tion, Isabel, and that you're really acting from a gen
erous impulse, but there's nothing so precarious at our
time of life as a generous impulse. When we were
younger we could stand it; we could give way to it
and take the consequences. But now we can't bear it.
We must act from cold reason even in the ardor of
self-sacrifice.'7

" Oh, as if you did that !" his wife retorted.

" Is that any cause why you shouldn't ?" She could
not say that it was, and he went on triumphantly:
" No, I won't take you away from the only safe place
on the planet and plunge you into the most perilous,
and then have you say in your revulsion of feeling that
you were all against it from the first, and you gave
wray because you saw I had my heart set on it." He
supposed he was treating the matter humorously, but
in this sort of banter between husband and wife there
is always much more than the joking. March had seen
some pretty feminine inconsistencies and trepidations
which once charmed him in his wife hardening into
traits of middle-age which wrere very like those of less
interesting older women. The sight moved him with a
kind of pathos, but he felt the result hindering and
vexatious.

She now retorted that if he did not choose to take
her at her word he need not, but that whatever he did
she should have nothing to reproach herself with ; and,
at least, he could not say that she had trapped liim into
anything.

" What do you mean by trapping ?" he demanded.

" I don't know what you call it," she answered ;
"but when you get me to commit myself to a thing
by leaving out the most essential point, I call it trap
ping."

" I wonder you stop at trapping, if you think I got

30

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

you to favor Fulkerson's scheme and then sprung ISTew
York on you. I don't suppose you do, though. But I
guess we won't talk about it any more."

He went out for a long walk, and she went to her
room. They lunched silently together in the presence
of their children, who knew that they had been quar
relling, but were easily indifferent to the fact, as chil
dren get to be in such cases; nature defends their
youth, and the unhappiness which they behold does
not infect them. In the evening, after the boy and
girl had gone to bed, the father and mother resumed
their talk. He would have liked to take it up at the
point from which it wandered into hostilities, for he
felt it lamentable that a matter which so seriously con
cerned them should be confused in the fumes of sense
less anger; and he was willing to make a tacit acknowl
edgment of his own error by recurring to the question,
but she would not be content with this, and he had to
concede explicitly to her weakness that she really meant
it when she had asked him to accept Fulkerson's offer.
He said he knew that ; and he began soberly to talk over
their prospects in the event of their going to New York.

" Oh, I see you are going !" she twitted.

" I'm going to stay," he answered, " and let them
turn me out of my agency here," and in this bitter
ness their talk ended.

His wife made no attempt to renew their talk before
March went to his business in the morning, and they
parted in dry offence. Their experience was that these
things always came right of themselves at last, and they
usually let them. He knew that she had really tried
to consent to a thing that was repugnant to her, and
in his heart he gave her more credit for the effort than
he had allowed her openly. She knew that she had
made it with the reservation he accused her of, and
that he had a right to feel sore at what she could not
help. But he left her to brood over his ingratitude,
and she suffered him to go heavy and unfriended to
meet the chances of the day. He said to himself that
if she had assented cordially to the conditions of Ful-
kerson's offer, he would have had the courage to take
all the other risks himself, and would have had the
satisfaction of resigning his place. As it was, he must
wait till he was removed; and he figured with bitter
pleasure the pain she would feel when he came home
some day and told her he had been supplanted, after
it was too late to close with Fulkerson.

He' found a letter on his desk from the secretary,
" Dictated," in typewriting, which briefly informed
him that Mr. Hubbell, the Inspector of Agencies,
would be in Boston on Wednesday, and would call
at his office during the forenoon. The letter was not

different in tone from many that he had formerly re-

32

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ceived; but the visit announced was out of the usual
order, and March believed he read his fate in it. .Dur
ing the eighteen years of his connection with it — first
as a subordinate in the Boston office, and finally as its
general agent there — he had seen a good many changes
in the Reciprocity; presidents, vice-presidents, actu
aries, and general agents had come and gone, but there
had always seemed to be a recognition of his efficiency,
or at least sufficiency, arid there had never been any
manner of trouble, no question of accounts, no appar
ent dissatisfaction with his management, until latterly,
when there had begun to come from headquarters some
suggestions of enterprise in certain ways, which gave
him his first suspicions of his clerk Watkins's willing
ness to succeed him ; they embodied some of Watkins's
ideas. The things proposed seemed to March undig
nified, and even vulgar; he had never thought himself
wanting in energy, though probably he had left the
business to take its own course in the old lines more
than he realized. Things had always gone so smooth
ly that he had sometimes fancied a peculiar regard
for him in the management, which he had the weak
ness to attribute to an appreciation of what he oc
casionally did in literature, though in saner moments
he felt how impossible this was. Beyond a reference
from Mr. Hubbell to some piece of March's which had
happened to meet his eye, no one in the management
ever gave a sign of consciousness that their service was
adorned by an obscure literary man ; and Mr. Hubbell
himself had the effect of regarding the excursions of
March's pen as a sort of joke, and of winking at them,
as he might have winked if once in a way he had found
him a little the gayer for dining.

March wore through the day gloomily, but he had
it on his conscience not to show any resentment toward

33

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Watkins, whom lie suspected of wishing to supplant
him, and even of working to do so. Through this self-
denial he reached a better mind concerning his wife.
He determined not to make her suffer needlessly, if
the worst came to the worst; she \vould suffer enough,
at the best, and till the worst came he would spare her,
and not say anything about the letter he had got.

But when they met, her first glance divined that
something had happened, and her first question frus
trated his generous intention. He had to tell her about
the letter. She would not allow that it had any sig
nificance, but she wished him to make an end of his
anxieties and forestall whatever it might portend by
resigning his place at once. She said she was quite
ready to go to N"ew York; she had been thinking it
all over, and now she really wanted to go. He an
swered, soberly, that he had thought it over, too; and
he did not wish to leave Boston, where he had lived so
long, or try a new way of life if he could help it. He
insisted that he was quite selfish in this; in their con
cessions their quarrel vanished ; they agreed that what
ever happened would be for the best ; and the next day
he went to his office fortified for any event.

His destiny, if tragical, presented itself with an
aspect which he might have found comic if it had been
another's destiny. Mr. Hubbell brought March's re
moval, softened in the guise of a promotion. The man
agement at "New York, it appeared, had acted upon a
suggestion of Mr. Hubbell's, and now authorized him
to offer March the editorship of the monthly paper
piiblished in the interest of the company; his office
would include the authorship of circulars and leaflets
in behalf of life-insurance, and would give play to the
literary talent which Mr. Hubbell had brought to the
attention of the management ; his salary would be near-

34

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ly as much as at present, but the work would not take
his whole time, and in a place like New York he could
get a great deal of outside writing, which they would
not object to his doing.

.Air. Hubbell seemed so sure of his acceptance of a
place in every way congenial to a man of literary tastes
that March was afterward sorry he dismissed the prop
osition with obvious irony, and had needlessly hurt
HubbelPs feelings; but Mrs. March had no such re
grets. She was only afraid that he had not made his
rejection contemptuous enough. " And now," she said,
" telegraph Mr. Fulkerson, and we will go at once."

" I suppose I could still get Watkins's former place,"
March suggested.

" Never !" she retorted. " Telegraph instantly !"

They were only afraid now that Fulkerson might
have changed his mind, and they had a wretched day
in which they heard nothing from him. It ended with
his answering March's telegram in person. They were
so glad of his coming, and so touched by his satisfaction
with his bargain, that they laid all the facts of the case
before him. He entered fully into March's sense of the
joke latent in Mr. HubbelPs proposition, and he tried
to make Mrs. March believe that he shared her resent
ment of the indignity offered her husband.

March made a show of willingness to release him in
view of the changed situation, saying that he held him
to nothing. Fulkerson laughed, and asked him how
soon he thought he could come on to New York. He
refused to reopen the question of March's fitness with
him; he said they had gone into that thoroughly, but
he recurred to it with Mrs. March, and confirmed her
belief in his good sense on all points. She had been
from the first moment defiantly confident of her hus
band's ability, but till she had talked the matter over
4 35

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with Fulkerson she was secretly not sure of it; or, at
least, she was not sure that March was not right in
distrusting himself. When she clearly understood,
now, what Fulkerson intended, she had no longer a
doubt. He explained how the enterprise differed from
others, and how he needed for its direction a man who
combined general business experience and business
ideas with a love for the thing and a natural aptness
for it. He did not want a young man, and yet he
wanted youth — its freshness, its zest — such as March
would feel in a thing he could put his whole heart into.
He would not run in ruts, like an old fellow who had
got hackneyed ; he would not have any hobbies ; he
would not have any friends or any enemies. Besides,
he would have to meet people, and March was a man
that people took to; she knew that herself; he had a
kind of charm. The editorial management was going
to be kept in the background, as far as the public was
concerned; the public was to suppose that the thing ran
itself. Fulkerson did not care for a great literary
reputation in his editor — he implied that March had
a very pretty little one. At the same time the relations
between the contributors and the management were to
be much more intimate than usual. F^ulkerson felt his
personal disqualification for working the thing socially,
and he counted upon Mr. March for that; that was to
>;iv, he counted iipon Mrs. March.

She protested he must not count upon her; but it
by no means disabled Fulker son's judgment in her
view that March really seemed more than anything
else a fancy of his. He had been a fancy of hers ; and
the sort of affectionate respect with which Fulkerson
spoke of him laid forever some doubt she had of the
fineness of Fulkerson's manners and reconciled her to

the graphic slanginess of his speech.

36

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

The affair was now irretrievable, but she gave her
approval to it as superbly as if it were submitted in
its inception. Only, Mr. Fulkerson must not suppose
she should ever like New York. She would not de
ceive him on that point. She never should like it.
She did not conceal, either, that she did not like tak
ing the children out of the Friday afternoon class ; and
she did not believe that Tom would ever be reconciled
to going to Columbia. She took courage from Fulker-
son's suggestion that it was possible for Tom to come to
Harvard even from New York; and she heaped him
with questions concerning the domiciliation of the fam
ily in that city. He tried to know something about the
matter, and he succeeded in seeming interested in points
necessarily indifferent to him.

VI

IN the uprooting and transplanting of their home
that followed, Mrs. March often trembled before dis
tant problems and possible contingencies, but she was
never troubled by present difficulties. She kept up with
tireless energy; and in the moments of dejection and
misgiving which harassed her husband she remained
dauntless, and put heart into him when he had lost it
altogether.

She arranged to leave the children in the house with
the servants, while she went on with March to look up
a dwelling of some sort in New York. It made him
sick to think of it ; and, when it came to the point, he
would rather have given up the whole enterprise. She
had to nerve him to it, to represent more than once
that now they had no choice but to make this experi
ment. Every detail of parting was anguish to him.
He got consolation out of the notion of letting the
house furnished for the winter; that implied their re
turn to it, but it cost him pangs of the keenest misery
to advertise it ; and, when a tenant was actually found,
it was all he could do to give him the lease. He tried
his wife's love and patience as a man must to whom
the future is easy in the mass but terrible as it trans
lates itself piecemeal into the present. He experienced
remorse in the presence of inanimate things he was
going to leave as if they had sensibly reproached him,

and an anticipative homesickness that seemed to stop

38

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

bis heart. Again and again his wife had to make him
reflect that his depression was not prophetic. She con
vinced him of what he already knew, and persuaded
him against his knowledge that he could be keeping an
eye out for something to take hold of in Boston if they
could not stand ISTew York. She ended by telling him
that it was too bad to make her comfort him in a trial
that was really so much more a trial to her. She had
to support him in a last access of despair on their way
to the Albany depot the morning they started to New
York; but when the final details had been dealt with,
the tickets bought, the trunks checked, and the hand
bags hung up in their car, and the future had massed
itself again at a safe distance and was seven hours and
two hundred miles away, his spirits began to rise and
hers to sink. He would have been willing to celebrate
the taste, the domestic refinement, of the ladies' wait
ing-room in the depot, where they had spent a quarter
of an hour before the train started. He said he did not
believe there was another station in the world where
mahogany rocking-chairs were provided; that the dull-
red warmth of the walls was as cozy as an evening
lamp, and that he always hoped to see a fire kindled
on that vast hearth and under that aesthetic mantel,
but he supposed now he never should. He said it was
all very different from that tunnel, the old Albany
depot, where they had waited the morning they went
to New York when they were starting on their wedding
journey.

" The morning, Basil !" cried his wife. " We went
at rdghl; and we were going to take the boat, but it
stormed so !" She gave him a glance of such reproach
that he could not answer anything, and now she asked
him whether he supposed their cook and second girl
would be contented with one of those dark holes where

39

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they put girls to sleep in. New York flats, and what
she should do if Margaret, especially, left her. He
ventured to suggest that Margaret would probably like
the city; but, if she left, there were plenty of other girls
to be had in New York. She replied that there were
none she could trust, and that she knew Margaret would
not stay. He asked her why she took her, then — why
she did not give her up at once ; and she answered that
it would be inhuman to give her up just in the edge
of the winter. She had promised to keep her; and
Margaret was pleased with the notion of going to New
York, where she had a cousin.

" Then perhaps she'll be pleased with the notion of
staying," he said.

" Oh, much you know about it !" she retorted ; and,
in view of the hypothetical difficulty and his want of
sympathy, she fell into a gloom, from which she roused
herself at last by declaring that, if there was nothing
else in the flat they took, there should be a light kitchen
and a bright, sunny bedroom for Margaret. He ex
pressed the belief that they could easily find such a
flat as that, and she denounced his fatal optimism,
which buoyed him up in the absence of an undertak
ing and let him drop into the depths of despair in its
presence.

He owned this defect of temperament, but he said
that it compensated the opposite in her character. " I
suppose that's one of the chief uses of marriage; peo
ple supplement one another, and form a pretty fair
sort of human being together. The only drawback to
the theory is that unmarried people seem each as com
plete and whole as a married pair."

She refused to be amused ; she turned her face to
the window and put her handkerchief up under her

veil.

40

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

It was not till the dining-car was attached to their
train that they were both able to escape for an hour
into the care-free mood of their earlier travels, when
they were so easily taken out of themselves. The time
had been when they could have found enough in the
conjectural fortunes and characters of their fellow-
passengers to occupy them. This phase of their youth
had lasted long, and the world was still full of novelty
and interest for them ; but it required all the charm of
the dining-car now to lay the anxieties that beset them.
It was so potent for the moment, however, that they
could take an objective view at their sitting cozily down
there together, as if they had only themselves in the
world. They wondered what the children were doing,
the children who possessed them so intensely when pres
ent, and now, by a fantastic operation of absence, seem
ed almost non-existent. They tried to be homesick for
them, but failed ; they recognized with comfortable self-
abhorrence that this was terrible, but owned a fascina
tion in being alone; at the same time, they could not
imagine how people felt who never had any children.
They contrasted the luxury of dining that way, with
every advantage except a band of music, and the old
way of rushing out to snatch a fearful joy at the lunch-
counters of the Worcester and Springfield and New
Haven stations. They had not gone often to New York
since their wedding journey, but they had gone often
enough to have noted the change from the lunch-counter
to the lunch-basket brought in the train, from which
you could subsist with more ease and dignity, but seem
ed destined to a superabundance of pickles, whatever
you ordered.

They thought well of themselves now that they could
be both critical and tolerant of flavors not very sharply
distinguished from one another in their dinner, and

41

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they lingered over their coffee and watched the au
tumn landscape through the windows.

" Not quite so loud a pattern of calico this year,"
he said, with patronizing forbearance toward the paint
ed woodlands whirling by. " Do you see how the
foreground next the train rushes from us and the
background keeps ahead of us, while the middle dis
tance seems stationary? I don't think I ever noticed
that effect before. There ought to be something lit
erary in it: retreating past and advancing future and
deceitfully permanent present — something like that?"

His wife brushed some crumbs from her lap before
rising. " Yes. You mustn't waste any of these ideas
now."

" Oh no ; it would be money out of Fulkerson's
pocket."

VII

THEY went to a quiet hotel far down-town, and took
a small apartment which they thought they could easily
afford for the day or two they need spend in looking
up a furnished flat. They were used to staying at this
hotel when they came on for a little outing in New
York, after some rigid winter in Boston, at the time
of the spring exhibitions. They were remembered
there from year to year; the colored call-boys, who
never seemed to get any older, smiled upon them, and
the clerk called March by name even before he regis
tered. He asked if Mrs. March were with him, and
said then he supposed they would want their usual
quarters; and in a moment they were domesticated
in a far interior that seemed to have been waiting for
them in a clean, quiet, patient disoccupation ever since
they left it two years before. The little parlor, with
its gilt paper and ebonized furniture, was the lightest
of the rooms, but it was not very light at noonday
without the gas, which the bell-boy now flared up for
them. The uproar of the city came to it in a soothing
murmur, and they took possession of its peace and
comfort with open celebration. After all, they agreed,
there was no place in the world so delightful as a hotel
apartment like that; the boasted charms of home were
nothing to it; and then the magic of its being always
there, ready for any one, every one, just as if it
were for some one alone: it was like the experience

43

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of an Arabian Nights hero come true for all the

race.

"

Oh, why can't we always stay here, just we two!"
Mrs. March sighed to her husband, as he came out
of his room rubbing his face red with the towel, whilo
she studied a new arrangement of her bonnet and hand
bag on the mantel.

" And ignore the past ? I'm willing. I've no doubt
that the children could get on perfectly well without
us, and could find some lot in the scheme of Providence
that would really be just as well for them."

" Yes ; or could contrive somehow never to have ex
isted. I should insist upon that. If they are, don't
you see that we couldn't wish them not to be?"

"Oh yes; I see your point; it's simply incontro
vertible."

She laughed and said : " Well, at any rate, if we
can't find a flat to suit us we can all crowd into these
three rooms somehow, for the winter, and then browse
about for meals. By the week we could get them much
cheaper; and we could save on the eating, as they do
in Europe. Or on something else."

" Something else, probably," said March. " But we
won't take this apartment till the ideal furnished flat
winks out altogether. We shall not have any trouble.
We can easily find some one who is going South for
the winter and will be glad to give up their flat ' to
the right party ' at a nominal rent. That's my notion.
That's what the Evanses did one winter when they
came on here in February. All but the nominality of
the rent,"

" Yes, and we could pay a very good rent and still
save something on letting our house. You can settle
yourselves in a hundred different ways in New York,

that is one merit of the place. But if everything else

44

A 11AZAKD O.F NEW FORTUNES

fails, we can corne back to this. I want you to take
the refusal of it, Basil. And we'll commence looking
this very evening as soon as we've had dinner. I cut
a lot of things out of the Herald as we came on. See
here!"

She took a long strip of paper out of her hand-hag
with minute advertisements pinned transversely upon
it, and forming the effect of some glittering nondescript
vertebrate.

" Looks something like the sea-serpent," said March,
drying his hands on the towel, while he glanced up
and down the list. " But we sha'n't have any trouble.
I've no doubt there are half a dozen things there that
will do. You haven't gone up-town ? Because we must
be near the Every Other Week office."

" No ; but I wish Mr. Fulkerson hadn't called it
that ! It always makes one think of ' jam yesterday
and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day,' in Through
the Look ing-Glass. They're all in this region."

They were still at their table, beside a low window,
where some sort of never-blooming shrub symmetrically
balanced itself in a large pot, with a leaf to the right
and a leaf to the left and a spear up the middle, when
Fulkerson came stepping square-footedly over the thick
dining-room carpet. He wagged in the air a gay hand
of salutation at sight of them, and of repression when
they offered to rise to meet him ; then, with an appar
ent simultaneity of action he gave a hand to each, pull
ed up a chair from the next table, put his hat and stick
on the floor beside it, and seated himself.

" Well, you've burned your ships behind you, sure
enough," he said, beaming his satisfaction upon them
from eyes and teeth.

" The ships are burned," said March, " though I'm
not sure we alone did it. But here we are, looking for

45

A HAZARD OE NEW FOETUNES

shelter, and a little anxious about the disposition of the

natives."

" Oh, they're an awful peaceable lot," said Fulker-
son. " IVe been round among the caciques a little, and
I think I've got two or three places that will just suit
you, Mrs. March. How did you leave the children?"

" Oh, how kind of you ! Very well, and very proud
to be left in charge of the smoking wrecks."

Fulkerson naturally paid no attention to what she
said, being but secondarily interested in the children at
the best. " Here are some things right in this neigh
borhood, within gunshot of the office, and if you want
you can go and look at them to-night; the agents gave
me houses where the people would be in."

" We will go and look at them instantly," said Mrs.
March. " Or, as soon as you've had coffee with us."

" Never do," Fulkerson replied. He gathered up
his hat and stick. " Just rushed in to say Hello, and
got to run right away again. I tell you, March, things
are humming. I'm after those fellows with a sharp
stick all the while to keep them from loafing on my
house, and at the same time I'm just bubbling over
with ideas about The Lone Hand — wish we could call
it that ! — that I want to talk up with you."

" Well, come to breakfast," said Mrs. March, cord
ially.

" No ; the ideas will keep till you've secured your
lodge in this vast wilderness. Good-bye."

" You're as nice as you can be, Mr. Fulkerson," she
said, " to keep us in mind when you have so much to
occupy you."

" I wouldn't have am/thing to occupy me if I hadn't
kept you in mind, Mrs. March," said Fulkerson, going
off upon as good a speech as he could apparently hope
to make.

46

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Why, Basil," said Mrs. March, when he was gone,
" he's charming ! But now we mustn't lose an instant.
Let's see where the places are." She ran over the half-
dozen agents' permits. " Capital — first-rate — the very
thing — every one. Well, I consider ourselves settled!
We can go back to the children to-morrow if we like,
though I rather think I should like to stay over an
other day and get a little rested for the final pulling-
Tip that's got to come. But this simplifies everything
enormously, and Mr. Fulkerson is as thoughtful and as
sweet as he can be. I know you will get on well with
him. He has such a good heart. And his attitude tow
ard you, Basil, is beautiful always — so respectful; or
not that so much as appreciative. Yes, apprecia
tive — that's the word ; I must always keep that in
mind."

" It's quite important to do so," said March.

" Yes," she assented, seriously, " and we must not
forget just what kind of flat we are going to look for.
The sine qua nons are an elevator and steam heat, not
above the third floor, to begin with. Then we must
each have a room, and you must have your study and
I must have my parlor; and the two girls must each
have a room. With the kitchen and dining-room, how
many does that make ?"

" Ten."

" I thought eight. Well, no matter. You can work
in the parlor, and run into your bedroom when any
body comes ; and I can sit in mine, and the girls must
put up with one, if it's large and sunny, though I've
always given them two at home. And the kitchen must
be sunny, so they can sit in it. 'And the rooms must
all have outside light. 'And the rent must not be over
eight hundred for the winter. We only get a thousand
for our whole house, and we must save something out

47

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of that, so as to cover the expenses of moving. Now, do
you think you can remember all that?"

" Not the half of it," said March. " But you can ;
or if you forget a third of it, I can come in with my
partial half and more than make it up."

She had brought her bonnet and sacque down-stairs
with her, and was transferring them from the hat-rack
to her person while she talked. The friendly door-boy
let them into the street, and the clear October evening
air brightened her so that as she tucked her hand under
her husband's arm and began to pull him along she
said, " If we find something right away — and we're
just as likely to get the right flat soon as late; it's all
a lottery — we'll go to the theatre somewhere."

She had a moment's panic about having left the

agents' permits on the table, and after remembering

that she had put them into her little shopping - bag,

where she kept her money (each note crushed into a

round wad), and had left it on the hat-rack, where

it would certainly be stolen, she found it on her wrist.

She did not think that very funny; but after a first

impulse to inculpate her husband, she let him laugh,

while they stopped under a lamp and she held the

permits half a yard away to read the numbers on them.

" Where are your glasses, Isabel ?"

" On the mantel in our room, of course."

" Then you ought to have brought a pair of tongs."

" I wouldn't get off second-hand jokes, Basil," she

said ; and " Why, here I" she cried, whirling round to

the door before which they had halted, " this is the

very number. Well, I do believe it's a sign !"

One of those colored men who soften the trade of
janitor in many of the smaller apartment-houses in
"NTew York by the sweetness of their race let the
Marches in, or, ratter, welcomed them to the pos-

48

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

session of the premises by the bow with which he ac
knowledged their permit. It was a large, old mansion
cut up into five or six dwellings, but it had kept some
traits of its former dignity, which pleased people of
their sympathetic tastes. The dark-mahogany trim, of
sufficiently ugly design, gave a rich gloom to the hall
way, which was wide and paved with marble ; the car
peted stairs curved aloft through a generous space,

" There is no elevator ?" Mrs. March asked of the
janitor.

lie ansAvered, "No, ma'am; only two nights up,"
so winningly that she said,

" Oh !" in courteous apology, and whispered to her
husband, as she followed lightly up, " We'll take it,
Basil, if it's like the rest."

" If it's like him, you mean."

" I don't wonder they wanted to own them," she
hurriedly philosophized. " If I had such a creature,
nothing but death should part us, and I should no more
think of giving him his freedom!"

"No; we couldn't afford it," returned her husband.

The apartment which the janitor unlocked for them,
and lit up from those chandeliers and brackets of gilt-
brass in the form of vine bunches, leaves, and tendrils
in which the early gas-fitter realized most of his con
ceptions of beauty, had rather more of the ugliness
than the dignity of the hall. But the rooms were large,
and they grouped themselves in a reminiscence of the
time when they were part of a dwelling that had its
charm, its pathos, its impressiveness. Where they were
cut up into smaller spaces, it had been done with the
frankness with which a proud old family of fallen fort
unes practises its economies. The rough pine floors
showed a black border of tack-heads where carpets had
been lifted and put down for generations; the white

49

A HAZAKD 0V NEW FOKTUNES

paint was yellow with age ; the apartment had light at
the front and at the back, and two or three rooms had
glimpses of the day through small windows let into
their corners ; another one seemed lifting an appealing
eye to heaven through a glass circle in its ceiling; the
rest must darkle in perpetual twilight. Yet something
pleased in it all, and Mrs. March had gone far to adapt
the different rooms to the members of her family, when
she suddenly thought (and for her to think was to say),
"Why, but there's no steam heat!"

" No, ma'am," the janitor admitted ; " but dere's
grates in most o' de rooms, and dere's furnace heat
in de halls."'

" That's true," she admitted, and, having placed her
family in the apartments, it was hard to get them out
again. " Could we manage ?" she referred to her hus
band.

" Why, / shouldn't care for the steam heat if —
What is the rent?" he broke off to ask the janitor.

" Nine hundred, sir."

March concluded to his wife, " If it were furnished."

" Why, of course ! What could I have been think
ing of? We're looking for a furnished flat," she ex
plained to the janitor, " and this was so pleasant and
homelike that I never thought whether it was furnished
or not."

She smiled upon the janitor, and he entered into the
joke and chuckled so amiably at her flattering over
sight on the way down - stairs that she said, as she
pinched her husband's arm, " Now, if you don't give
him a quarter I'll never speak to you again, Basil !"

" I would have given half a dollar willingly to get
you beyond his glamour," said March, when they were
safely on the pavement outside. " If it hadn't been
for iny strength of character, you'd have taken an un-

50

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

furnished flat without heat and with no elevator, at
nine hundred a year, when you had just sworn me to
steam heat, an elevator, furniture, and eight hundred."

" Yes ! How could I have lost my head so com
pletely?" she said, with a lenient amusement in her
aberration which she was not always able to feel in
her husband's.

" The next time a colored janitor opens the door to
us, I'll tell him the apartment doesn't suit at the thresh
old. It's the only way to manage you, Isabel."

" It's true. I am in love with the whole race. I
never saw one of them that didn't have perfectly an
gelic manners. I think we shall all be black in heaven
— that is, black-souled."

" That isn't the usual theory," said March.

" Well, perhaps not," she assented. " Where are we
going now ? Oh yes, to the Xenophon !"

She pulled him gayly along again, and after they
had walked a block down and half a block over they
stood before the apartment-house of that name, which
was cut on the gas-lamps on either side of the heavily
spiked, aesthetic-hinged black door. The titter of an
electric-bell brought a large, fat Buttons, with a stage
effect of being dressed to look small, who said he would
call the janitor, and they waited in the dimly splendid,
copper-colored interior, admiring the whorls and waves
into which the wall-paint was combed, till the janitor
came in his gold-banded cap, like a Continental portier.
When they said they would like to see Mrs. Grosvenor
Green's apartment, he owned his inability to cope with
the affair, and said he must send for the superintend
ent ; he was either in the Herodotus or the Thucydides,
and would be there in a minute. The Buttons brought
him — a Yankee of browbeating presence in plain
clothes — almost before they had time to exchange a
5 51

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

frightened whisper in recognition of the fact that there
could be no doubt of the steam heat and elevator in
this case. Half stifled in the one, they mounted in.
the other eight stories, while they tried to keep their
self-respect under the gaze of the superintendent, which
they felt was classing and assessing them with unfriend
ly accuracy. They could not, and they faltered abashed
at the threshold of Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment,
while the superintendent lit the gas in the gangway that
he called a private hall, and in the drawing-room and
the succession of chambers stretching rearward to the
kitchen. Everything had been done by the architect
to save space, and everything to waste it by Mrs.
Grosvenor Green. She had conformed to a law for
the necessity of turning round in each room, and had
folding-beds in the chambers; but there her subordina
tion had ended, and wherever you might have turned
round she had put a gimcrack so that you would knock
it over if you did turn. The place was rather pretty
and even imposing at first glance, and it took several
joint ballots for March and his wife to make sure that
with the kitchen there were only six rooms. At every
door hung a portiere from large rings on a brass rod ;
every shelf and dressing-case and mantel was littered
with gimcracks, and the corners of the tiny rooms were
curtained off, and behind these portieres swarmed more
gimcracks. The front of the upright piano had what
March called a short-skirted portiere on it, and the top
was covered with vases, with dragon candlesticks and
with Jap fans, which also expanded themselves bat-
wise on the walls between the etchings and the water-
colors. The floors were covered with filling, and then
rugs and then skins ; the easy - chairs all had tidies,
Armenian and Turkish and Persian; the lounges and
sofas had embroidered cushions hidden under tidies.

52

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

The radiator was concealed by a Jap screen, and over
the top of this some Arab scarfs were flung. There was
a superabundance of clocks. China pugs guarded the
hearth ; a brass sunflower smiled from the top of either
andiron, and a brass peacock spread its tail before them
inside a high filigree fender ; on one side was a coal-
hod in repousse brass, and on the other a wrought-irori
wood-basket. Some red Japanese bird-kites were stuck
about in the necks of spelter vases, a crimson Jap
umbrella hung opened beneath the chandelier, and each
globe had a shade of yellow silk.

March, when he had recovered his self-command a
little in the presence of the agglomeration, comforted
himself by calling the bric-a-brac Jamescracks, as if
this was their full name.

The disrespect he was able to show the whole apart
ment by means of this joke strengthened him to say
boldly to the superintendent that it was altogether too
small ; then he asked carelessly what the rent was.

" Two hundred and fifty."

The Marches gave a start, and looked at each other.

" Don't you think we could make it do ?" she asked
him, and he could see that she had mentally saved five
hundred dollars as the difference between the rent of
their house and that of this flat. " It has some very
pretty features, and we could manage to squeeze in,
couldn't we ?"

" You won't find another furnished flat like it for
no two-fifty a month in the whole city," the superin
tendent put in.

They exchanged glances again, and March said, care
lessly, " It's too small."

" There's a vacant flat in the Herodotus for eighteen
hundred a year, and one in the Thucydides for fifteen,"
the superintendent suggested, clicking his keys together

53

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

as they sank down in the elevator ; " seven rooms and
bath."

" Thank you/' said March ; " we're looking for a
furnished flat."

They felt that the superintendent parted from them
with repressed sarcasm.

" Oh, Basil, do you think we really made him think
it was the smallness and not the dearness ?"

" No, but we saved our self-respect in the attempt ;
and that's a great deal."

" Of course, I wouldn't have taken it, anyway, with
only six rooms, and so high up. But what prices!
Now, we must be very circumspect about the next
place."

It was a janitress, large, fat, with her arms wound
up in her apron, who received them there. Mrs. March
gave her a succinct but perfect statement of their needs.
She failed to grasp the nature of them, or feigned to
do so. She shook her head, and said that her son
would show them the flat. There was a radiator visible
in the narrow hall, and Isabel tacitly compromised on
steam heat without an elevator, as the flat was only
one flight up. When the son appeared from below with
a small kerosene hand-lamp, it appeared that the flat
was unfurnished, but there was no stopping him till he
had shown it in all its impossibility. When they got
safely away from it and into the street March said:
" Well, have you had enough for to - night, Isabel ?
Shall we go to the theatre now?"

" Not on any account. I want to see the whole
list of flats that Mr. Fulkerson thought would be the
very thing for us." She laughed, but with a certain
bitterness.

" You'll be calling him my Mr. Fulkerson next,
Isabel."

54

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"Oh no!"

The fourth address was a furnished flat without
a kitchen, in a house with a general restaurant. The
fifth was a furnished house. At the sixth a pathetic
widow and her pretty daughter wanted to take a family
to board, and would give them a private table at a
rate which the Marches would have thought low in
Boston.

Mrs. March came away tingling with compassion for
their evident anxiety, and this pity naturally soured
into a sense of injury. " Well, I must say I have
completely lost confidence in Mr. Fulker son's judg
ment. Anything more utterly different from what 1
told him we wanted I couldn't imagine. If he doesn't
manage any better about his business than he has done
about this, it will be a perfect failure."

" Well, well, let's hope he'll be more circumspect
about that," her husband returned, with ironical pro
pitiation. " But I don't think it's Fulkerson's fault
altogether. Perhaps it's the house-agents'. They're
very illusory generation. There seems to be somethin
in the human habitation that corrupts the natures of
those who deal in it, to buy or sell it, to hire or let/
it. You go to an agent and tell him what kind ofa
house you want. He has no such house, and he sends
you to look at something altogether different, upon the
well-ascertained principle that if you can't get what
you want you will take what you can get. You don't
suppose the ' party ' that took our house in Boston was
looking for any such house ? He was looking for a
totally different kind of house in another part of the
town."

" I don't believe that !" his wife broke in.

" Well, no matter. But see what a scandalous rent
you asked for it."

55

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"We didn't get much more than half; and, besides,
the agent told me to ask fourteen hundred."

" Oh, I'm not blaming you, Isabel. I'm only an
alyzing the house-agent and exonerating Fulkerson."

" Well, I don't believe he told them just what we
wanted ; and, at any rate, I'm done with agents. To
morrow I'm going entirely by advertisements."

VIII

MRS. MARCH took the vertebrate with her to the
\?rienna Coffee - House, where they went to breakfast
next morning. She made March buy her the Herald
and the World, and she added to its spiny convolutions
from them. She read the new advertisements aloud
with ardor and with faith to believe that the apart
ments described in them were every one truthfully
represented, and that any one of them was richly re
sponsive to their needs. "Elegant, light, large, single
and outside flats " Avere offered with " all improve
ments — bath, ice-box, etc." — for twenty-five to thirty
dollars a month. The cheapness was amazing. The
Wagram, the Esmeralda, the Jacinth, advertised them
for forty dollars and sixty dollars, " with steam heat
and elevator," rent free till ^November. Others, at
tractive from their air of conscientious scruple, an
nounced "first-class flats; good order; reasonable
rents." The Helena asked the reader if she had seen
the " cabinet finish, hard-wood floors, and frescoed ceil
ings " of its fifty - dollar flats ; the Asteroid affirmed
that such apartments, with " six light rooms and bath,
porcelain wash-tubs, electric bells, and hall-boy," as it-
offered for seventy-five dollars were unapproached by
competition. There was a sameness in the jargon
which tended to confusion. Mrs. March got several
flats on her list which promised neither steam heat
nor elevators; she forgot herself so far as to include

57

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

two or three as remote from the down-town region of
her choice as Harlem. But after she had rejected these
the nondescript vertebrate was still voluminous enough
to sustain her buoyant hopes.

The waiter, who remembered them from year to
year, had put them at a window giving a pretty good
section of Broadway, and before they set out on their
search they had a moment of reminiscence. They re
called the Broadway of five, of ten, of twenty years
ago, swelling and roaring with a tide of gayly painted
omnibuses and of picturesque traffic that the horse-
cars have now banished from it. The grind of their
wheels and the clash of their harsh bells imperfectly
fill the silence that the omnibuses have left, and the
eye misses the tumultuous perspective of former times.

They went out and stood for a moment before Grace
Church, and looked down the stately thoroughfare, and
found it no longer impressive, no longer characteristic.
It is still Broadway in name, but now it is like any
other street. You do not now take your life in your
hand when you attempt to cross it; the Broadway
policeman who supported the elbow of timorous beauty
in the hollow of his cotton-gloved palm and guided its
little fearful boots over the crossing, while he arrested
the billowy omnibuses on either side with an imperious
glance, is gone, and all that certain processional, bar
baric gayety of the place is gone.

" Palmyra, Baalbec, Timour of the Desert," said
March, voicing their common feeling of the change.

They turned and went into the beautiful church, and
found themselves in time for the matin service. Rapt
far from New York, if not from earth, in the dim
richness of the painted light, the hallowed music took
them with solemn ecstasy; the aerial, aspiring Gothic
forms seemed to lift them heavenward. They came

58

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

out, reluctant, into the dazzle and bustle of the street,
with a feeling that they were too good for it, which
they confessed to each other with whimsical con
sciousness.

" But no matter how consecrated we feel now," he
said, " we mustn't forget that we went into the church
for precisely the same reason that we went to the
Vienna Cafe for breakfast — to gratify an a3sthetic
sense, to renew the faded pleasure of travel for a mo
ment, to get back into the Europe of our youth. It
was a purely Pagan impulse, Isabel, and we'd better
own it."

" I don't know," she returned. " I think we re
duce ourselves to the bare bones too much. I wish
we didn't always recognize the facts as we do. Some
times I should like to blink them. I should like to
think I was devouter than I am, and younger and
prettier."

" Better not ; you couldn't keep it up. Honesty is
the best policy even in such things."

" No ; I don't like it, Basil. I should rather wait
till the last day for some of my motives to come to the
top. I know they're always mixed, but do let me give
them the benefit of a doubt sometimes."

" Well, well, have it your own way, my dear. But
I prefer not to lay up so many disagreeable surprises
for myself at that time."

She would not consent. " I know I am a good deal
younger than I was. I feel quite in the mood of that
morning when we walked down Broadway on our wed
ding journey. Don't you ?"

" Oh yes. But I know I'm not younger ; I'm only
prettier."

She laughed for pleasure in his joke, and also for
unconscious joy in the gay New York weather, in which

59

A ITAZAKT) OF NEW FORTUNES

there was no arriere pensee of the east wind. They
had crossed Broadway, and were walking over to Wash
ington Square, in the region of which they now hoped
to place themselves. The primo tenore statue of Gari-
haldi had already taken possession of the place in the
name of Latin progress, and they met Italian faces,
French faces, Spanish faces, as they strolled over the
asphalt walks, under the thinning shadows of the au
tumn-stricken sycamores. They met the familiar pict
uresque raggedness of Southern Europe with. the. old
kindly illusion that somehow it existed for their ap
preciation, and that it found adequate compensation for
poverty in this. March thought he sufficiently express
ed his tacit sympathy in sitting down on one of the
iron benches with his wife and letting a little Nea
politan put a superfluous shine on his boots, while their
desultory comment wandered with equal esteem to the
old-fashioned American respectability which keeps the
north side of the square in vast mansions of red brick,
and the international shabbiness which has invaded the
southern border, and broken it up into lodging-houses,
shops, beer-gardens, and studios.

They noticed the sign of an apartment to let on the
nor tli side, and as soon as the little bootblack could be
bought off they went over to look at it. The janitor
met them at the door and examined them. Then he
said, as if still in doubt, u It has ten rooms, and the
rent is twenty-eight hundred dollars."

" It wouldn't do, then," March replied, and left him
to divide the responsibility between the paucity of the
rooms and the enormity of the rent as he best might.
But their self - love had received a wound, and they
questioned each other what it was in their appearance
made him doubt their ability to pay so much.

" Of course, we don't look like New-Yorkers," sighed

60

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mrs. March, " and we've walked through the Square.
That might be as if we had walked along the Park
Street mall in the Common before we came out on
Beacon. Do you suppose he could have seen you get
ting your boots blacked in that way V

" It's useless to ask/7 said March. " But I never can
recover from this blow."

" Oh, pshaw ! You know you hate such things as
badly as I do. It was very impertinent of him."

" Let us go back and ecraser I'infame by paying
him a year's rent in advance and taking immediate
possession. Nothing else can soothe my wounded feel
ings. You were not having your boots blacked: why
shouldn't he have supposed you were a New-Yorker,
and I a country cousin ?"

" They always know. Don't you remember Mrs.
Williams's going to a Fifth Avenue milliner in a
Worth dress, and the woman's asking her instantly
what hotel she should send her hat to?"

" Yes ; these things drive one to despair. I don't
wonder the bodies of so many genteel strangers are
found in the waters around New York. Shall we try
the south side, my dear? or had we better go back to
our rooms and rest awhile ?"

Mrs. March had out the vertebrate, and was con
sulting one of its glittering ribs and glancing up from
it at a house before which they stood. " Yes, it's the
number; but do they call this being ready October
first?" The little area in front of the basement was
heaped with a mixture of mortar, bricks, laths, and
shavings from the interior ; the brownstone steps to the
front door were similarly bestrewn ; the doorway show
ed the half-open, rough pine carpenter's sketch of an
unfinished house; the sashless windows of every story
showed the activity of workmen within; the clatter of

61

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

hammers and the hiss of saws came out to them from
every opening.

" They may call it October first," said March, " be
cause it's too late to contradict them. But they'd better
not call it December first in my presence ; I'll let them
say January first, at a pinch."

" We will go in and look at it, anyway," said his
wife; and he admired how, when she was once within,
she began provisionally to settle the family in each of
the several floors with the female instinct for domi-
ciliation which never failed her. She had the help
of the landlord, who was present to urge forward the
workmen apparently; he lent a hopeful fancy to the
solution of all her questions. To get her from under
his influence March had to represent that the place
was damp from undried plastering, and that if she
stayed she would probably be down with that New
York pneumonia which visiting Bostonians are always
dying of. Once safely on the pavement outside, she
realized that the apartment was not only unfinished,
but unfurnished, and had neither steam heat nor ele
vator. " But I thought we had better look at every
thing," she explained.

" Yes, but not take everything. If I hadn't pulled
you away from there by main force you'd have not
only died of New York pneumonia on the spot, but
you'd have had us all settled there before we knew
what we were about."

" Well, that's what I can't help, Basil. It's the only
way I can realize whether it will do for us. I have to
dramatize the whole thing."

She got a deal of pleasure as well as excitement out
of this, and he had to own that the process of setting
up housekeeping in so many different places was not
only entertaining, but tended, through association with

62

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

their first beginnings in housekeeping, to restore the
image of their early married days and to make them
young again.

It went on all day, and continued far into the night,
until it was too late to go to the theatre, too late to
do anything but tumble into bed and simultaneously
fall asleep. They groaned over their reiterated dis
appointments, but they could not deny that the interest
was unfailing, and that they got a great deal of fun
out of it all. Nothing could abate Mrs. March's faith
in her advertisements. One of them sent her to a flat
of ten rooms which promised to be the solution of all
their difficulties; it proved to be over a livery-stable, a
liquor store, and a milliner's shop, none of the first
fashion. Another led them far into old Greenwich
Village to an apartment-house, which she refused to
enter behind a small girl with a loaf of bread under
one arm and a quart can of milk under the other.

In their search they were obliged, as March com
plained, to the acquisition of useless information in
a degree unequalled in their experience. They came
to excel in the sad knowledge of the line at which re
spectability distinguishes itself from shabbiness. Flat
tering advertisements took them to numbers of huge
apartment-houses chiefly distinguishable from tenement-
houses by the absence of fire-escapes on their facades,
till Mrs. March refused to stop at any door where there
were more than six bell-ratchets and speaking-tubes on
either hand. Before the middle of the afternoon she
decided against ratchets altogether, and confined her
self to knobs, neatly set in the door-trim. Her husband
was still sunk in the superstition that you can live any
where you like in New York, and he would have paused
at some places where her quicker eye caught the fatal
sign of " Modes " in the ground-floor windows. She

63

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

found that there was an east and west line beyond
Avhich they could not go if they wished to keep their
self-respect, and that within the region to which they
had restricted themselves there was a choice of streets.
At first all the New York streets looked to them ill-
paved, dirty, and repulsive; the general infamy im
parted itself in their casual impression to streets in no
wise guilty. But they began to notice that some streets
were quiet and clean, and, though never so quiet and
clean as Boston streets, that they wore an air of en
couraging reform, and suggested a future of greater
and greater domesticity. Whole blocks of these down
town, cross-streets seemed to have been redeemed from
decay, and even in the midst of squalor a dwelling here
and there had been seized, painted a dull red as to its
brick-work, and a glossy black as to its wood-work, and
with a bright brass bell-pull and door-knob and a large
brass plate for its key-hole escutcheon, had been en
dowed with an effect of purity and pride which removed
its shabby neighborhood far from it.

Some of these houses were quite small, and im
aginably within their means ; but, as March said, some
body seemed always to be living there himself, and the
fact that none of them was to rent kept Mrs. March
true to her ideal of a flat, Nothing prevented its
realization so much as its difference from the New
York ideal of a flat, which was inflexibly seven rooms
and a bath. One or two rooms might be at the front,
the rest crooked and cornered backward through in
creasing and then decreasing darkness till they reached
a light bedroom or kitchen at the rear. It might be
the one or the other, but it was always the seventh
room with the bath; or if, as sometimes happened, it
was the eighth, it was so after having counted the bath
as one; in this case the janitor said you always counted

CA

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

the bath as one. If the flats were advertised as having

o

u all light rooms," he explained that any room with a
window giving into the open air of a court or shaft
was counted a light room.

The Marches tried to make out why it was that these
flats were so much more repulsive than the apartments
which every one lived in abroad; but they could: only
do so upon the supposition that in their European days
they were too young, too happy, too full of the future,
to notice whether rooms were inside or outside, light or
dark, big or little, high or low. " Now we're im
prisoned in the present," he said, " and we have to
make the worst of it."

In their despair he had an inspiration, which she
declared worthy of him : it was to take two small flats,
of four or five rooms and a bath, and live in both.
They tried this in a great many places, but they never
could get two flats of the kind on the same floor where
there was steam heat and an elevator. At one place
they almost did it. They had resigned themselves to
the humility of the neighborhood, to the prevalence of
modistes and livery - stablemen (they seem to consort
much in New York), to the garbage in the gutters and
the litter of paper in the streets, to the faltering slats
in the surrounding window-shutters and the crumbled
brownstone steps and sills, when it turned out that one
of the apartments had been taken between two visits
they made. Then the only combination left open to
them was of a ground-floor flat to the right and a third-
floor flat to the left.

Still they kept this inspiration in reserve for use
at the first opportunity. In the mean time there were
several flats which they thought they could almost make
do: notably one where they could get an extra ser
vant's room in the basement four flights down, and

65

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

another where they could get it in the roof five flights
up. At the first the janitor was respectful and en
thusiastic; at the second he had an effect of ironical
pessimism. When they trembled on the verge of tak
ing his apartment, he pointed out a spot in the kal-
somining of the parlor ceiling, and gratuitously said,
Now such a thing as that he should not agree to put
in shape unless they took the apartment for a term of
years. The apartment was unfurnished, and they re
curred to the fact that they wanted a furnished apart
ment, and made their escape. This saved them in
several other extremities; but short of extremity they
could not keep their different requirements in mind,
and were always about to decide without regard to some
one of them.

They went to several places twice without intend
ing: once to that old-fashioned house with the pleasant
colored janitor, and wandered all over the apartment
again with a haunting sense of familiarity, and then
recognized the janitor and laughed; and to that house
with the pathetic widow and the pretty daughter who
wished to take them to board. They stayed to excuse
their blunder, and easily came by the fact that the
mother had taken the house that the girl might have
a home while she was in New York studying art, and
they hoped to pay their way by taking boarders. Her
daughter was at her class now, the mother concluded;
and they encouraged her to believe that it could only
be a few days till the rest of her scheme was realized.

" I dare say we could be perfectly comfortable
there," March suggested when they had got away.
" Now if we were truly humane we would modify
our desires to meet their needs and end this sicken
ing search, wouldn't we ?"

" Yes, but we're not truly humane," his wife an-

66

A HAZAKD OF 'NEW FORTUNES

swered, " or at least not in that sense. You know you
hate boarding ; and if we went there I should have them
on my sympathies the whole time."

" I see. And then you would take it out of me."

" Then I should take it out of you. And if you are
going to be so weak, Basil, and let every little thing
work upon you in that way, you'd better not come to
New York. You'll see enough misery here."

" Well, don't take that superior tone with me, as if
I were a child that had its mind set on an undesirable
toy, Isabel."

" Ah, don't you suppose it's because you are such
a child in some respects that I like you, dear?" she
demanded, without relenting.

" But I don't find so much misery in New York. I
don't suppose there's any more suffering here to the
population than there is in the country. And they're
so gay about it all. I think the outward aspect of the
place and the hilarity of the sky and air must get into
the people's blood. The weather is simply unapproach
able; and I don't care if it is the ugliest place in the
world, as you say. I suppose it is. It shrieks and
yells with ugliness here and there, but it never loses
its spirits. That widow is from the country. When
she's been a year in New York she'll be as gay — as
gay as an L road." He celebrated a satisfaction they
both had in the L roads. ^ They kill the streets and
avenues, but at least they partially hide them, and that
is some comfort; and they do triumph over their pros
trate forms with a savage exultation that is intoxi
cating. Those bends in the L that you get in the
corner of Washington Square, or just below the Cooper
Institute — they're the gayest things in the world. Per
fectly atrocious, of course, but incomparably pictu
resque! And the whole city is so," said March, "or
6 67

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

else the L would never have got built here. \ New York
may be splendidly gay or squalidly gay; but, prince
or pauper, it's gay always."

" Yes, gay is the word," she admitted, with a sigh.
" But frantic. I can't get used to it. They forget
death, Basil ; they forget death in New York."

" Well, I don't know that I've ever found much ad
vantage in remembering it."

" Don't say such a thing, dearest."

He could see that she had got to the end of her
nervous strength for the present, and he proposed that
they should take the Elevated road as far as it would
carry them into the country, and shake off their night
mare of flat-hunting for an hour or two; but her con
science would not let her. She convicted him of levity
equal to that of the New-Yorkers in proposing such a
thing ; and they dragged through the day. She was too
tired to care for dinner, and in the night she had a
dream from which she woke herself with a cry that
roused him, too. It was something about the children
. at first, whom they had talked of wistfully before fall-

£^ ing asleep, and then it was of a hideous thing with

// I two sclliare eJes and a series of sections growing darker

and then lighter, till the tail of the monstrous articulate
was quite luminous again. She shuddered at the vague
description she was able to give ; but he asked, " Did
it offer to bite you ?"

" No. That was the most frightful thing about it ;
it had no mouth."

March laughed. " Why, my dear, it was nothing
but a harmless New York flat — seven rooms and a
bath."

" I really believe it was," she consented, recognizing
an architectural resemblance, and she fell asleep again,
and woke renewed for the work before them.

08

IX

THEIK house-hunting no longer had novelty, but it
still had interest; and they varied their day by taking
a coupe, by renouncing advertisements, and by revert
ing to agents. Some of these induced them to consider
the idea of furnished houses; and Mrs. March learned
tolerance for Fulkerson by accepting permits to visit
flats and houses which had none of the qualifications
she desired in either, and were as far beyond her means
as they were out of the region to which she had geo
graphically restricted herself. They looked at three-
thousand and four - thousand dollar apartments, and
rejected them for one reason or another which had
nothing to do with the rent ; the higher the rent was, the
more critical they \vere of the slippery inlaid floors and
the arrangement of the richly decorated rooms. They
never knew whether they had deceived the janitor
or not; as they came in a coupe, they hoped they
had.

They drove accidentally through one street that seem
ed gayer in the perspective than an L road. The fire-
escapes, with their light iron balconies and ladders of
iron, decorated the lofty house fronts ; the roadway and
sidewalks and door-steps swarmed with children ; wom
en's heads seemed to show at every window. In the
basements, over which flights of high stone steps led
to the tenements, were green-grocers' shops abounding
in cabbages, and provision stores running chiefly to

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

bacon and sausages, and cobblers' and tinners7 shops,
and the like, in proportion to the small needs of a
poor neighborhood. Ash barrels lined the sidewalks,
and garbage heaps filled the gutters ; teams of all trades
stood idly about; a peddler of cheap fruit urged his
cart through the street, and mixed his cry with the
joyous screams and shouts of the children and the
scolding and gossiping voices of the women ; the burly
blue bulk of a policeman defined itself at the corner;
a drunkard zigzagged down the sidewalk toward him.
It was not the abode of the extremest poverty, but of
a poverty as hopeless as any in the world, transmitting
itself from generation to generation, and establishing
conditions of permanency to which human life adjusts
itself as it does to those of some incurable disease, like
leprosy.

The time had been when the Marches would have
taken a purely aesthetic view of the facts as they
glimpsed them in this street of tenement-houses; when
they would have contented themselves with saying that
it was as picturesque as a street in Naples or Florence,
and with wondering why nobody came to paint it ; they
would have thought they were sufficiently serious about
it in blaming the artists for their failure to appreciate
it, and going abroad for the picturesque when they
had it here under their noses. It was to the nose that
the street made one of its strongest appeals, and Mrs.
March pulled up her window of the coupe. " Why
does he take us through such a disgusting street ?" she
demanded, with an exasperation of which her husband
divined the origin.

" This driver may be a philanthropist in disguise,"
he answered, with dreamy irony, " and may want us
to think about the people who are not merely carried
through this street in a coupe, but have to spend their

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

whole lives in it, winter and summer, with no hopes
of driving out of it, except in a hearse. I must say
they don't seem to mind it. I haven't seen a jollier
crowd anywhere in New York. They seem to have for
gotten death a little more completely than any of their
fellow-citizens, Isabel. And I wonder what they think
of us, making this gorgeous progress through their
midst. I suppose they think we're rich, and hate us
—if they hate rich people; they don't look as if they
hated anybody. Should we be as patient as they
are with their discomfort? I don't believe there's
steam heat or an elevator in the whole block. Seven
rooms and a bath would be more than the largest
and genteelest family would know what to do with.
They wouldn't know what to do with the bath, any
way."

His monologue seemed to interest his wife apart
from the satirical point it had for themselves. " You
ought to get Mr. Fulkerson to let you work some of
these ~New York sights up for Every Other Week,
Basil; you could do them very nicely."

" Yes ; I've thought of that. But don't let's leave
the personal ground. Doesn't it make you feel rather
small and otherwise unworthy when you see the kind
of street these fellow-beings of yours live in, and then
think how particular you are about locality and the
number of bell-pulls ? I don't see even ratchets and
speaking-tubes at these doors." He craned his neck out
of the window for a better look, and the children of
discomfort cheered him, out of sheer good feeling
and high spirits. " I didn't know I was so popular.
Perhaps it's a recognition of my humane senti
ments."

" Oh, it's very easy to have humane sentiments, and
to satirize ourselves for wanting eight rooms and a bath

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

in a good neighborhood, when wo see how these wretch
ed creatures live," said his wife. " But if we shared
all we have with them, and then settled down among
them, what good would it do ?"

" Not the least in the world. It might help us for
the moment, but it wouldn't keep the wolf from their
doors for a week; and then they would go on just as
before, only they wouldn't be on such good terms with
the wolf. The only way for them is to keep up an
unbroken intimacy with the wolf; then they can man
age him somehow. I don't know how, and I'm afraid
I don't want to. Wouldn't you like to have this
fellow drive us round among the halls of pride some
where for a little while? Fifth Avenue or Madison,
up-town ?"

" No ; we've no time to waste. I've got a place near
Third Avenue, on a nice cross street, and I want him
to take us there." It proved that she had several ad
dresses near together, and it seemed best to dismiss
their coupe arid do the rest of their afternoon's work
on foot. It came to nothing; she was not humbled in
the least by what she had seen in the tenement-house
street; she yielded no point in her ideal of a flat, and
the flats persistently refused to lend themselves to it.
She lost all patience with them.

" Oh, I don't say the flats are in the right of it,"
said her husband, when she denounced their stupid
inadequacy to the purposes of a Christian home. " But
I'm not so sure that we are, either. I've been thinking
about that home business ever since my sensibilities
were dragged — in a coupe — through that tenement-house
street. Of course, no child born and brought up in such
a place as that could have any conception of home.
But that's because those poor people can't give char
acter to their habitations. They have to take what they

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

can get. But people like us — that is, of our means —
do give character to the average flat. It's made to meet
their tastes, or their supposed tastes; and so it's made
for social show, not for family life at all. Think of
a baby in a flat ! It's a contradiction in terms ; the
flat is the negation of motherhood. The flat means
society life; that is, the pretence of social life. It's
made to give artificial people a society basis on a little
money — too much money, of course, for what they get.
So the cost of the building is put into marble halls and
idiotic decoration of all kinds. I don't object to the
conveniences, but none of these flats has a living-room.
They have drawing-rooms to foster social pretence, and
they have dining-rooms and bedrooms; but they have
no room where the family can all come together and
feel the sweetness of being a family. The bedrooms
are black-holes mostly, with a sinful waste of space in
each. If it were not for the marble halls, and the deco
rations, and the foolishly expensive finish, the houses
could be built round a court, and the flats could be
shaped something like a Pompeiian house, with small
sleeping-closets — only lit from the outside — and the
rest of the floor thrown into two or three large cheerful
halls, where all the family life could go on, and society
could be transacted unpretentiously. Why, those tene
ments are better and humaner than those flats ! There
the whole family lives in the kitchen, and has its con
sciousness of being; but the flat abolishes the family
consciousness. It's confinement without coziness; it's
cluttered without being snug. YOU couldn't keep a self-
respecting cat in a flat ; you couldn't go down cellar to
get cider. ~No: the Anglo-Saxon home, as we know it
in the Anglo-Saxon house, is simply impossible in the
Franco-American flat, not because it's humble, but be
cause it's false."

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A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

"Well, then," said Mrs. March, " let's look at
houses."

He had been denouncing the flat in the abstract, and
he had not expected this concrete result. But he said,
" We will look at houses, then."

mystifies a man more than a woman's
aberrations from some point at which he supposes
her fixed as a star. In these unfurnished houses,
without steam or elevator, March followed his wife
about with patient wonder. She rather liked the worst
of them best: but she made him go down into the cel
lars and look at the furnaces; she exacted from him a
rigid inquest of the plumbing. She followed him into
one of the cellars by the fitful glare of successively
lighted matches, and they enjoyed a moment in which
the anomaly of their presence there on that errand, so
remote from all the facts of their long-established life
in Boston, realized itself for them.

" Think how easily we might have been murdered
and nobody been any the wiser!" she said when they
were comfortably outdoors again.

" Yes, or made way with ourselves in an access of
emotional insanity, supposed to have been induced by
unavailing flat-hunting," he suggested.

She fell in with the notion. " I'm beginning to feel
crazy. But I don't want you to lose your head, Basil.
And I don't want you to sentimentalize any of the
things you see in New York. I think you were dis
posed to do it in that street we drove through. I don't
believe there's any real suffering — not real suffering —
among those people ; that is, it would be suffering from

our point of view, but they've been used to it all

75

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

their lives, and they don't feel their discomfort so
much."

" Of course, I understand that, and I don't propose
to sentimentalize them. I think when people get used
to a bad state of things they had better stick to it; in
fact, they don't usually like a better state so well, and
I shall keep that firmly in mind."

She laughed with him, and they walked along the
L-bestridden avenue, exhilarated by their escape from
murder and suicide in that cellar, toward the nearest
cross - town track, which they meant to take home to
their hotel. " Now to-night we will go to the theatre,"
she said, " and get this whole house business out of our
minds, and be perfectly fresh for a new start in the
morning." Suddenly she clutched his arm. " Why,
did you see that man ?" and she signed with her head
toward a decently dressed person who walked beside
them, next the gutter, stooping over as if to examine
it, and half halting at times.

"No. What?"

" Why, I saw him pick up a dirty bit of cracker
from the pavement and cram it into his mouth and
eat it down as if he were famished. And look! he's
actually hunting for more in those garbage heaps !"

This was what the decent-looking man with the hard
hands and broken nails of a workman was doing — like
a hungry dog. They kept up with him, in the fascina
tion of the sight, to the next corner, where he turned
down the side street still searching the gutter.

They walked on a few paces. Then March said, " I
must go after him," and left his wife standing.

" Are you in want — hungry ?" he asked the man.

The man said he could not speak English, Mon
sieur.

March asked his question in French.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

The man shrugged a pitiful, desperate shrug, " Mais,
Monsieur — "

March put a coin in his hand, and then suddenly
the man's face twisted up ; he caught the hand of this
alms-giver in both of his and clung to it. " Monsieur !
Monsieur !" he gasped, and the tears rained down his
face.

His benefactor pulled himself away, shocked and
ashamed, as one is by such a chance, and got back to
his wife, and the man lapsed back into the mystery of
misery out of which he had emerged.

March felt it laid upon him to console his wife for
what had happened. " Of course, we might live here
for years and not see another case like that ; and, of
course, there are twenty places where he could have
gone for help if he had known where to find them."

" Ah, but it's the possibility of his needing the help
so badly as that," she answered. " That's what I can't
bear, and I shall not come to a place where such things
are possible, and we may as well stop oitr house-hunting
here at once."

" Yes ? And what part of Christendom will you
live in ? Such things are possible everywhere in our
conditions."

" Then we must change the conditions — '

" Oh no ; we must go to the theatre and forget them.
We can stop at Brentano's for our tickets as we pass
through Union Square."

" I am not going to the theatre, Basil. I am going
home to Boston to-night. You can stay and find a
flat."

He convinced her of the absurdity of her position,
and even of its selfishness; but she said that her mind
was quite made up irrespective of what had happened ;
that she had been away from the children long enough ;

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A HAZAK1) OF NEW FORTUNES

that she ought to be at home to finish up the work of
leaving it. The word brought a sigh. " Ah, I don't
know why we should see nothing but sad and ugly
things now. When we were young —

" Younger/7 he put in. " We're still young."

" That's what we pretend, but we know better. But
I was thinking how pretty and pleasant things used to
be turning up all the time on our travels in the old
days. Why, when we were in New York here on our
wedding journey the place didn't seem half so dirty as
it does now, and none of these dismal things happened."

" It was a good deal dirtier," he answered ; " and I
fancy worse in every way — hungrier, raggeder, more
wretchedly housed. But that wasn't the period of life
for us to notice it. Don't you remember, when we
started to Niagara the last time, how everybody seemed
middle-aged and commonplace ; and when we got there
there were no evident brides; nothing but elderly mar
ried people?"

" At least they weren't starving," she rebelled.

" No, you don't starve in parlor-cars and first-class
hotels ; but if you step out of them you run your chance
of seeing those who do, if you're getting on pretty well
in the forties. If it's the unhappy who see unhappi-
ness, think what misery must be revealed to people
who pass their lives in the really squalid tenement-
house streets — I don't mean picturesque avenues like
that we passed through."

" But we are not unhappy," she protested, bringing
the talk back to the personal base again, as women
must to get any good out of talk. " We're really no
unhappier than we were when we were young."

" We're more serious."

" Well, I hate it ; and I wish you wouldn't be so
serious, if that's what it brings us to."

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I will be trivial from this on," said March. " Shall
we go to the Hole in the Ground to-night ?"

" I am going to Boston."

" It's much the same thing. How do you like that
for triviality ? It's a little blasphemous, I'll allow."

" It's very silly," she said.

At the hotel they found a letter from the agent who
had sent them the permit to see Mrs. Grosvenor Green's
apartment. He wrote that she had heard they were
pleased with her apartment, and that she thought she
could make the terms to suit. She had taken her pas
sage for Europe, and was very anxious to let the flat
before she sailed. She would call that evening at seven.

" Mrs. Grosvenor Green !" said Mrs. March.
" Which of the ten thousand flats is it, Basil ?"

" The gimcrackery," he answered. u In the Xeno-
phon, you know."

" Well, she may save herself the trouble. I shall
not see her. Or yes — I must. I couldn't go away
without seeing what sort of creature could have planned
that fly-away flat. She must be a perfect —

" Parachute," March suggested.

" No : anybody so light as that couldn't come down."

" Well, toy balloon."

" Toy balloon will do for the present," Mrs. March
admitted. " But I feel that naught but herself can be
her parallel for volatility."

When Mrs. Grosvenor Green's card came up they
both descended to the hotel parlor, which March said
looked like the saloon of a Moorish day-boat; not that
he knew of any such craft, but the decorations were
so Saracenic and the architecture so Hudson Riverish.
They found there on the grand central divan a large
lady whose vast smoothness, placidity, and plumpness
set at defiance all their preconceptions of Mrs. Grosve-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

nor Green, so that Mrs. March distinctly paused with
her card in her hand before venturing even tenta
tively to address her. Then she was astonished at the
low, calm voice in which Mrs. Green acknowledged
herself, and slowly proceeded to apologize for calling.
It was not quite true that she had taken her passage
for Europe, but she hoped soon to do so, and she con
fessed that in the mean time she was anxious to let
her flat. She was a little worn out with the care of
housekeeping — Mrs. March breathed, " Oh yes !" in the
sigh with which ladies recognize one another's martyr
dom — and Mrs. Green had business abroad, and she was
going to pursue her art studies in Paris ; she drew in
Mr. Ilcomb's class now, but the instruction was so much
better in Paris; and as the superintendent seemed to
think the price was the only objection, she had ventured
to call.

" Then we didn't deceive him in the least," thought
Mrs. March, while she answered, sweetly : " No ; we
were only afraid that it would be too small for our
family. We require a good many rooms." She could
not forego the opportunity of saying, " My husband is
coming to New York to take charge of a literary peri
odical, and he will have to have a room to write in,"
which made Mrs. Green bow to March, and made
March look sheepish. " But we did think the apart
ment very charming" (It was architecturally charm
ing, she protested to her conscience), " and we should
have been so glad if we could have got into it." She
followed this with some account of their house-hunting,
amid soft murmurs of sympathy from Mrs. Green, who
said that she had been through all that, and that if
she could have shown her apartment to them she felt
sure that she could have explained it so that, they would
have seen its capabilities better, Mrs. March assented

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

to this, and Mrs. Green added that if they found noth
ing exactly suitable she would be glad to have them
look at it again ; and then Mrs. March said that she
was going back to Boston herself, but she was leaving
Mr. March to continue the search, and she had no doubt-
he would be only too glad to see the apartment by day
light. " But if you take it, Basil," she warned him,
when they were alone, " I shall simply renounce you.
I wouldn't live in that junk-shop if you gave it to me.
But who would have thought she was that kind of look
ing person ? Though of course I might have known
if I had stopped to think once. It's because the place
doesn't express her at all that it's so unlike her. It
couldn't be like anybody, or anything that flies in the
air, or creeps upon the earth, or swims in the waters
under the earth. I wonder where in the world she's
from; she's no New- Yorker; even we can see that; and
she's not quite a country person, either; she seems like
a person from some large town, where she's been an
aesthetic authority. And she can't find good enough
art instruction in New York, and has to go to Paris
for it ! Well, it's pathetic, after all, Basil. I can't
help feeling sorry for a person who mistakes herself
to that extent."

" I can't help feeling sorry for the husband of a
person who mistakes herself to that extent. What is
Mr. Grosvenor Green going to do in Paris while she's
working her way into the Salon ?"

" Well, you keep away from her apartment, Basil ;
that's all I've got to say to you. And yet I do like
some things about her."

" I like everything about her but her apartment,"
said March.

" I like her going to be out of the country," said
his wife. " We shouldn't be overlooked. And the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

place was prettily shaped, you can't deny it. And
there was an elevator and steam heat. And the loca
tion is very convenient. And there was a hall-boy to
bring up cards. The halls and stairs were kept very
clean and nice. But it wouldn't do. I could put you
a folding bed in the room where you wrote, and we
could even have one in the parlor —

" Behind a portiere ? I couldn't stand any more
portieres !"

" And we could squeeze the two girls into one room,
or perhaps only bring Margaret, and put out the whole
of the wash. Basil !" she almost shrieked, ik it isn't to
be thought of!"

He retorted, " I'm not thinking of it, my dear."

Fulkerson came in just before they started for Mrs.
March's train, to find out what had become of them,
he said, and to see whether they had got anything to
live in yet.

" N~ot a thing," she said. " And I'm just going back
to Boston, and leaving Mr. March here to do anything
he pleases about it. He has carte blanche."

" But freedom brings responsibility, you know, Pul-
kerson, and it's the same as if I'd no choice. I'm stay
ing behind because I'm left, not because I expect to do
anything."

" Is that so ?" asked Fulkerson. " Well, we must
see what can be done. I supposed you would be all
settled by this time, or I should have humped myself
to find you something. Xone of those places I gave you
amounts to anything?"

" As much as forty thousand others we've looked at,"
said Mrs. March. " Yes, one of them does amount to
something. It comes so near being what we want that
I've given Mr. March particular instructions not to go
near it."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

She told him about Mrs. Grosvenor Green and her
flats, and at the end he said:

" Well, well, we must look out for that. I'll keep
an eye on him, Mrs. March, and see that he doesn't
do anything rash, and I won't leave him till he's found
just the right thing. It exists, of course ; it must in
a city of eighteen hundred thousand people, and the
only question is where to find it. You leave him to me,
Mrs. March; I'll watch out for him."

Fulkerson showed some signs of going to the station
when he found they were not driving, but she bade
him a peremptory good-bye at the hotel door.

" He's very nice, Basil, and his way with you is
perfectly charming. It's very sweet to see how really
fond of you he is. But I didn't want him stringing
along up to Forty-second Street with us, and spoiling
our last moments together."

At Third Avenue they took the Elevated, for which
she confessed an infatuation. She declared it the most
ideal way of getting about in the world, and was not
ashamed when he reminded her of how she used to say
that nothing under the sun could induce her to travel
on it. She now said that the night transit was even
more interesting than the day, and that the fleeing in
timacy you formed with people in second and third
floor interiors, while all the usual street life went on
underneath, had a domestic intensity mixed with a
perfect repose that was the last effect of good society
with all its security and exclusiveness. He said it
was better than the theatre, of which it reminded him,
to see those people through their windows: a family
party of work-folk at a late tea, some of the men in
their shirt - sleeves ; a woman sewing by a lamp; a
mother laying her child in its cradle ; a man with his

head fallen on his hands upon a table ; a girl and her

7 83

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

lover leaning over the window-sill together. What sug
gestion ! what drama ! what infinite interest ! At the
Forty-second Street station they stopped a minute on
the bridge that crosses the track to the branch road
for the Central Depot, and looked up and down the
long stretch of the Elevated to north and south. The
track that found and lost itself a thousand times in
the flare and tremor of the innumerable lights; the
moony sheen of the electrics mixing with the reddish
points and blots of gas far and near ; the architectural
shapes of houses and churches and towers, rescued by
the obscurity from all that was ignoble in them, and
the coming and going of the trains marking the stations
with vivider or fainter plumes of flame-shot steam —
formed an incomparable perspective. They often talk
ed afterward of the superb spectacle, which in a city
full of painters nightly works its unrecorded miracles;
and they were just to the Arachne rbof spun in iron
over the cross street on which they ran to the depot;
but for the present they were mostly inarticulate be
fore it. They had another moment of rich silence when
they paused in the gallery that leads from the Elevated
station to the waiting-rooms in the Central Depot and
looked down upon the great night trains lying on the
tracks dim under the rain of gas-lights that starred
without dispersing the vast darkness of the place.
What forces, what fates, slept in these bulks which
would soon be hurling themselves north and south and
west through the night! Now they waited there like
fabled monsters of Arab story ready for the magician's
touch, tractable, reckless, will-less — organized lifeless-
ness full of a strange semblance of life.

The Marches admired the impressive sight with a
tin-ill of patriotic pride in the fact that the whole
world perhaps could not afford just the like. Then

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they hurried down to the ticket-offices, and he got her
a lower berth in the Boston sleeper, and went with her
to the car. They made the most of the fact that her
berth was in the very middle of the car ; and she prom
ised to write as soon as she reached home. She prom
ised also that, having seen the limitations of New York
in respect to flats, she would not be hard on him if
he took something not quite ideal. Only he must re
member that it was not to be above Twentieth Street nor
below Washington Square; it must not be higher than
the third floor; it must have an elevator, steam heat,
hall - boys, and a pleasant janitor. These were es
sentials; if he could not get them, then they must do
without. But he must get them.

XI

MRS. MARCH was one of those wives who exact a
more rigid adherence to their ideals from their hus
bands than from themselves. Early in their married
life she had taken charge of him in all matters which
she considered practical. She did not include the busi
ness of bread-winning in these ; that was an affair that
might safely be left to his absent-minded, dreamy in
efficiency, and she did not interfere with him there.
But in such things as rehanging the pictures, deciding
on a summer boarding-place, taking a seaside cottage,
repapering rooms, choosing seats at the theatre, seeing
what the children ate when she was not at table, shut
ting the cat out at night, keeping run of calls and invita
tions, and seeing if the furnace was dampered, he had
failed her so often that she felt she could not leave him
the slightest discretion in regard to a flat. Her total
distrust of his judgment in the matters cited and others
like them consisted with the greatest admiration of his
mind and respect for his character. She often said
that if he would only bring these to bear in such ex
igencies he would be simply perfect; but she had long
given up his ever doing so. She subjected him, there
fore, to an iron code, but after proclaiming it she was
apt to abandon him to the native lawlessness of his
temperament. She expected him in this event to do as
he pleased, and she resigned herself to it with consid
erable comfort in holding him accountable. He learn-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ed to expect this, and after suffering keenly from her
disappointment with whatever he did he waited patient
ly till she forgot her grievance and began to extract
what consolation lurks in the irreparable. She would
almost admit at moments that what he had done was a
very good thing, but she reserved the right to return
in full force to her original condemnation of it; and
she accumulated each act of independent volition in
witness and warning against him. Their mass op
pressed but never deterred him. He expected to
do the wrong thing when left to his own devices,
and he did it without any apparent recollection of
his former misdeeds and their consequences. There
was a good deal of comedy in it all, and some
tragedy.

He now experienced a certain expansion, such as
husbands of his kind will imagine, on going back to
his hotel alone. It was, perhaps, a revulsion from the
pain of parting; and he toyed with the idea of Mrs.
Grosvenor Green's apartment, which, in its preposter
ous unsuit ability, had a strange attraction. He felt
that he could take it with less risk than anything else
they had seen, but he said he wrould look at all the
other places in town first. He really spent the greater
part of the next day in hunting up the owner of an
apartment that had neither steam heat nor an elevator,
but was otherwise perfect, and trying to get him to take
less than the agent asked. By a curious psychical oper
ation he was able, in the transaction, to work himself
into quite a passionate desire for the apartment, while
he held the Grosvenor Green apartment in the back
ground of his mind as something that he could return
to as altogether more suitable. He conducted some
simultaneous negotiation for a furnished house, which
enhanced still more the desirability of the Grosvenor

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Green apartment. Toward evening he went off at a
tangent far up-town, so as to be able to tell his wife
how utterly preposterous the best there would be as
compared even with this ridiculous Grosvenor Green
gimcrackery. It is hard to report the processes of his
sophistication ; perhaps this, again, may best- be left to
the marital imagination.

He rang at the last of these up-town apartments as
it was falling dusk, and it was long before the janitor
appeared. Then the man was very surly, and said if
he looked at the flat now he would say it was too dark,
like all the rest. His reluctance irritated March in
proportion to his insincerity in proposing to look at it
at all. He knew he did not mean to take it under any
circumstances ; that he was going to use his inspection
of it in dishonest justification of his disobedience to
his wife; but he put on an air of offended dignity.
" If you don't wish to show the apartment," he said,
" I don't care to see it."

The man groaned, for he was heavy, and no doubt
dreaded the stairs. He scratched a match on his thigh,
and led the way up. March was sorry for him, and
he put his fingers on a quarter in his waistcoat-pocket
to give him at parting. At the same time, he had to
trump up an objection to the flat. This was easy, for
it was advertised as containing ten rooms, and he found
the number eked out with the bath-room and two large
closets. " It's light enough," said March, " but I don't
see how you make out ten rooms."

" There's ten rooms," said the man, deigning no
proof.

March took his fingers off the quarter, and went
down-stairs and out of the door without another word.
It would be wrong, it would be impossible, to give the

man anything after such insolence. He reflected, with

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shame, that it was also cheaper to punish than forgive
him.

He returned to his hotel prepared for any desperate
measure, and convinced now that the Grosvenor Green
apartment was not merely the only thing left for him,
but was, on its own merits, the best thing in Xew
York.

Fulkerson was waiting for him in the reading-room,
and it gave March the curious thrill with which a
man closes with temptation when he said : " Look here !
Why don't you take that woman's flat in the Xenophon ?
She's been at the agents again, and they've been at me.
She likes your look — or Mrs. March's — and I guess
you can have it at a pretty heavy discount from the
original price. I'm authorized to say you can have
it for one seventy-five a month, and I don't believe it
would be safe for you to offer one fifty."

March shook his head, and dropped a mask of virtu
ous rejection over his corrupt acquiescence. " It's too
small for us — we couldn't squeeze into it."

" Why, look here !" Fulkerson persisted. " How
many rooms do you people want?"

" I've got to have a place to work —

" Of course ! And you've got to have it at the Fifth
Wheel office."

" I hadn't thought of that," March began. " I sup
pose I could do my work at the office, as there's not
much writing — '

" Why, of course you can't do your work at home.
You just come round with me now, and look at that
flat again."

"No; I can't do it."

" Why «"

" I — I've got to dine."

"All right," said Fulkerson. "Dine with me. I

89

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

want to take you round to a little Italian place that I
know."

One may trace the successive steps of March's de
scent in this simple matter with the same edification
that would attend the study of the self-delusions and
obfuscations of a man tempted to crime. The process
is probably not at all different, and to the philosophical
mind the kind of result is unimportant; the process is
everything.

Fulkerson led him down one block and half across
another to the steps of a small dwelling-house, trans
formed, like many others, into a retaurant of the Latin
ideal, with little or no structural change from the pat
tern of the lower middle-class New York home. There
were the corroded brownstone steps, the mean little
front door, and the cramped entry with its narrow
stairs by which ladies could go up to a dining-room
appointed for them on the second floor ; the parlors on
the first were set about with tables, where men smoked
cigarettes between the courses, and a single waiter ran
swiftly to and fro with plates and dishes, and ex
changed unintelligible outcries with a cook beyond a
slide in the back parlor. He rushed at the new-comers,
brushed the soiled table-cloth before them with a towel
on his arm, covered its worst stains with a napkin, and
brought them, in their order, the vermicelli soup, the
fried fish, the cheese-strewn spaghetti, the veal cutlets,
the tepid roast fowl and salad, and the wizened pear
and coffee which form the dinner at such places.

" Ah, this is nice /" said Fulkerson, after the laying
of the charitable napkin, and he began to recognize
acquaintances, some of whom he described to March
as young literary men and artists with whom they
should probably have to do; others were simply fre
quenters of the place, and were of all nationalities and

00

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

religions apparently — at least, several were Hebrews
and Cubans. u You get a pretty good slice of New
York here," he said, " all except the frosting on top.
That you won't find much at Maroni's, though you will
occasionally. I don't mean the ladies ever, of course."
The ladies present seemed harmless and reputable-look
ing people enough, but certainly they were not of the
first fashion, and, except in a few instances, not Amer
icans. " It's like cutting straight down through a fruit
cake," Fulkerson went on, " or a mince-pie, when you
don't know who made the pie ; you get a little of every
thing." He ordered a small flask of Chianti with the
dinner, and it came in its pretty wicker jacket. March
smiled upon it with tender reminiscence, and Fulker
son laughed. u Lights you up a little. I brought old
Dryfoos here one day, and he thought it was sweet-
oil ; that's the kind of bottle they used to have it in at
the country drug-stores."

" Yes, I remember now ; but I'd totally forgotten
it," said March. " How far back that goes ! Who's
Dryfoos ?"

" Dryfoos ?" Fulkerson, still smiling, tore off a piece
of the half-yard of French loaf which had been sup
plied them, with two pale, thin disks of butter, and
fed it into himself. " Old Dryfoos? Well, of course!
I call him old, but he ain't so very. About fifty, or
along there."

" No," said March, " that isn't very old — or not so
old as it used to be."

" Well, I suppose you've got to know about him,
anyway," said Fulkerson, thoughtfully. " And I've
been wondering just how I should tell you. Can't
always make out exactly how much of a Bostonian
you really are ! Ever been out in the natural - gas

country 2"

91

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No" said March. " I've had a good deal of curi
osity about it, but Fve never been able to get away
except in summer, and then we always preferred to go
over the old ground, out to Niagara and back through
Canada, the route we took on our wedding journey.
The children like it as much as we do."

" Yes, yes," said Fulkerson. " Well, the natural-gas
country is worth seeing. I don't mean the Pittsburg
gas - fields, but out in Northern Ohio and Indiana
around Moffitt — that's the place in the heart of the
gas region that they've been booming so. Yes, you
ought to see that country. If you haven't been West,
for a good many years, you haven't got any idea how
old the country looks. You remember how the fields
used to be all full of stumps ?"

" I should think so."

" Well, you won't see any stumps now. All that
country out around Moffitt is just as smooth as a
checker - board, and looks as old as England. You
know how we used to burn the stumps out; and then
somebody invented a stump-extractor, and we pulled
them out with a yoke of oxen. Now they just touch
'em off with a little dynamite, and they've got a cellar
dug and filled up with kindling ready for housekeeping
whenever you want it. Only they haven't got any use
for kindling in that country — all gas. I rode along on
the cars through those level black fields at corn-planting
time, and every once in a while I'd come to a place
with a piece of ragged old stove-pipe stickin' up out
of the ground, and blazing away like forty, and a fel
low ploughing all round it and not minding it any
more than if it was spring violets. Horses didn't notice
it, either. Well, they've always known about the gas
out there ; they say there are places in the woods where
it's been burning ever since the country was settled.

92

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" But when you come in sight of Moffitt — my, oh,
my ! Well, you come in smell of it about as soon.
That gas out there ain't odorless, like the Pittsburg
gas, and so it's perfectly safe; but the smell isn't bad
—about as bad as the finest kind of benzine. Well,
the first thing that strikes you when you come to
Moffitt is the notion that there has been a good warm,
growing rain, and the town's come up overnight.
That's in the suburbs, the annexes, and additions.
But it ain't shabby — no shanty-town business ; nice
brick and frame houses, some of 'em Queen Anne style,
and all of 'em looking as if they had come to stay. And
when you drive up from the depot you think every
body's moving. Everything seems to be piled into the
street; old houses made over, and new ones going up
everywhere. You know the kind of street Main Street
always used to be in our section — half plank-road and
turnpike, and the rest mud-hole, and a lot of stores and
doggeries strung along with false fronts a story higher
than the back, and here and there a decent building
Avith the gable end to the public ; and a court-house and
jail and two taverns and three or four churches. Well,
they're all there in Moffitt yet, but architecture has
struck it hard, and they've got a lot of new buildings
that needn't be ashamed of themselves anywhere; the
new court-house is as big as St. Peter's, and the Grand
Opera-House is in the highest style of the art. You
can't buy a lot on that street for much less than you
can buy a lot in New York — or you couldn't when the
boom was on ; I saw the place just when the boom was
in its prime. I went out there to work the newspapers
in the syndicate business, and I got one of their men
to write me a real bright, snappy account of the gas;
and they just took me in their arms and showed me
everything. Well, it was wonderful, and it was beauti-

93

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ful, too ! To see a whole community stirred up like
that was — just like a big boy, all hope and high spirits,
and no discount on the remotest future; nothing but
perpetual boom to the end of time — I tell you it warm
ed your blood. Why, there were some things about it
that made you think what a nice kind of world this
would be if people ever took hold together, instead of
each fellow fighting it out on his own hook, and devil
take the hindmost. They made up their minds at
Moffitt that if they wanted their town to grow they'd
got to keep their gas public property. So they extended
their corporation line so as to take in pretty much the
whole gas region round there ; and then the city took
possession of every well that was put down, and held it
for the common good. Anybody that's a mind to come
to Moffitt and start any kind of manufacture can have
all the gas he wants free; and for fifteen dollars a year
you can have all the gas you want to heat and light
your private house. The people hold on to it for them
selves, and, as I say, it's a grand sight to see a whole
community hanging together and working for the good
of all, instead of splitting up into as many different
cut-throats as there are able-bodied citizens. See that
fellow ?" Fulkerson broke off, and indicated with a
twirl of his head a short, dark, foreign-looking man
going out of the door. " They say that fellow's a
Socialist. I think it's a shame they're allowed to come
here. If they don't like the way we manage our af
fairs let 'em stay at home," Fulkerson continued.
" They do a lot of mischief, shooting off their mouths
round here. I believe in free speech and all that; but
I'd like to see these fellows shut up in jail and left
to jaw one another to death. We don't want any of
their poison."

March did not notice the vanishing Socialist. He

94

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

was watching, with a teasing sense of familiarity, a
tall, shabbily dressed, elderly man, who had just come
in. He had the aquiline profile uncommon among
Germans, and yet March recognized him at once as
German. His long, soft beard and mustache had once
been fair, and they kept some tone of their yellow in
the gray to which they had turned. His eyes were
full, and his lips and chin shaped the beard to the
noble outline which shows in the beards the Italian
masters liked to paint for their Last Suppers. His
carriage was erect and soldierly, and March presently
saw that he had lost his left hand. He took his place
at a table where the overworked waiter found time to
cut up his meat and put everything in easy reach of
his right hand.

" Well," Fulkerson resumed, " they took me round
everywhere in Moffitt, and showed me their big wells
—lit 'em up for a private view, and let me hear them
purr with the soft accents of a mass-meeting of loco
motives. Why, when they let one of these wells loose
in a meadow that they'd piped it into temporarily, it
drove the flame away forty feet from the mouth of the
pipe and blew it over half an acre of ground. They
say when they let one of their big wells burn away all
winter before they had learned how to control it, that
well kept up a little summer all around it; the grass
stayed green, and the flowers bloomed all through the
winter. I don't know whether it's so or not. But I
can believe anything of natural gas. My! but it was
beautiful when they turned on the full force of that
well and shot a roman candle into the gas — that's the
way they light it — and a plume of fire about twenty
feet wide and seventy-five feet high, all red and yellow
and violet, jumped into the sky, and that big roar shook

the ground under your feet! You felt like saying:

95

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

' Don't trouble yourself ; I'm perfectly convinced. I
believe in Moffitt.' \\V-e-e-ll !" drawled Fulkerson,
with a long breath, " that's where I met old Dryfoos."

" Oh yes ! — Dryfoos/' said March. He observed
that the waiter had brought the old one-handed Ger
man a towering glass of beer.

" Yes," Fulkerson laughed. " We've got round to
Dryfoos again. I thought I could cut a long story
short, but I seem to be cutting a short story long. If
you're not in a hurry, though —

" Not in the least. Go on as long as you like."

" I met him there in the office of a real-estate man
— speculator, of course ; everybody was, in Moffitt ; but
a first-rate fellow, and public-spirited as all get-out;
and when Dryfoos left he told me about him. Dryfoos
was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, about three or
four miles out of Moffitt, and he'd lived there pretty
much all his life; father was one of the first settlers.
Everybody knew he had the right stuff in him, but he
was slower than molasses in January, like those Penn
sylvania Dutch. He'd got together the largest and
handsomest farm anywhere around there; and he was
making money on it, just like he was in some business
somewhere ; he was a very intelligent man ; he took the
papers and kept himself posted; but he was awfully
old-fashioned in his ideas. He hung on to the doctrines
as well as the dollars of the dads; it was a real thing
with him. Well, when the boom began to come he
hated it awfully, and he fought it. He used to write
communications to the weekly newspaper in Moffitt —
they've got three dailies there now — and throw cold
water on the boom. He couldn't catch on no way. It
made him sick to hear the clack that went on about
the gas the whole while, and that stirred up the neigh
borhood and got into his family. Whenever he'd hear

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of a man that had been offered a big price for his land
and was going to sell out and move into town, he'd
go and labor with him and try to talk him out of it,
and tell him how long his fifteen or twenty thousand
would last him to live on, and shake the Standard Oil
Company before him, and try to make him believe it
wouldn't be five years before the Standard owned the
whole region.

" Of course, he couldn't do anything with them.
When a man's offered a big price for his farm, he
don't care whether it's by a secret emissary from the
Standard Oil or not; he's going to sell and get the bet
ter of the other fellow if he can. Dryfoos couldn't
keep the boom out of his own family even. His wife
was with him. She thought whatever he said and did
was just as right as if it had been thundered down
from Sinai. But the young folks were sceptical, es
pecially the girls that had been away to school. The
boy that had been kept at home because he couldn't be
spared from helping his father manage the farm was
more like him, but they contrived to stir the boy up
with the hot end of the boom, too. So when a fellow
came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool
hundred thousand for his farm, ij was all up with
Dryfoos. He'd 'a' liked to 'a' kept the offer to himself
and not done anything about it, but his vanity wouldn't
let him do that ; and when he let it out in his family
the girls outvoted him. They just made him sell.

" He wouldn't sell all. He kept about eighty acres
that was off in one piece by itself, but the three hun
dred that had the old brick house on it, and the big
barn — that went, and Dryfoos bought him a place in
Moffitt and moved into town to live on the interest of
his money. Just what he had scolded and ridiculed
everybody else for doing. Well, they say that at first

07

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

he seemed like he would go crazy. He hadn't any
thing to do. He took a fancy to that land-agent, and
he used to go and set in his office and ask him what he
should do. i I hain't got any horses, I hain't got any
COWTS, I hain't got any pigs, I hain't got any chickens.
I hain't got anything to do from sun-up to sun-down.'
The fellow said the tears used to run down the old
fellow's cheeks, and if he hadn't been so busy himself
he believed he should 'a' cried, too. But most o' peo
ple thought old Dryfoos was down in the mouth because
he hadn't asked more for his farm, when he wanted to
buy it back and found they held it at a hundred and
fifty thousand. People couldn't believe he was just
homesick and heartsick for the old place. Well, per
haps he was sorry he hadn't asked more ; that's human
nature, too.

" After a while something happened. That land-
agent used to tell Dryfoos to get out to Europe with
his money and see life a little, or go and live in Wash
ington, where he could be somebody; but Dryfoos
wouldn't, and he kept listening to the talk there, and
all of a sudden he caught on. He came into that- fel
low's one day with a plan for cutting up the eighty
acres he'd kept into town lots ; and he'd got it all plotted
out so well, and had so many practical ideas about it,
that the fellow was astonished. He went right in with
him, as far as Dryfoos would let him, and glad of the
chance ; and they were working the thing for all it was
worth when I struck Moffitt, Old Dryfoos wanted me
to go out and see the Dryfoos & Hendry Addition —
guess he thought maybe I'd write it up ; and he drove
me out there himself. Well, it was funny to see a
town made : streets driven through ; two rows of shade-
trees, hard and soft, planted; cellars dug ajid houses
put up — regular Queen Anne style, too, with stained

98

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

glass — all at once. Dryfoos apologized for the streets
because they were hand-made ; said they expected their
street-making machine Tuesday, and then they intended
to push things."

Fulkerson enjoyed the effect of his picture on March
for a moment, and then went on : " He was mighty in
telligent, too, and he questioned me up about my busi
ness as sharp as 7 ever was questioned ; seemed to kind
of strike his fancy; I guess he wanted to. find out if
there was any money in it. He was making money,
hand over hand, then ; and he never stopped speculating
and improving till he'd scraped together three or four
hundred thousand dollars ; they said a million, but they
like round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a mill
ion would lay over it comfortably and leave a few
thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on to
!N"ew York."

Fulkerson struck a match against the ribbed side
of the porcelain cup that held the matches in the
centre of the table, and lit a cigarette, which he be
gan to smoke, throwing his head back with a leisurely
effect, as if he had got to the end of at least as much
of his story as he meant to tell without prompting.

March asked him the desired question. " What in
the world for ?"

Fulkerson took out his cigarette and said, with a
smile : " To spend his money, and get his daughters
into the old Knickerbocker society. Maybe he thought
they were all the same kind of Dutch."

" And has he succeeded ?"

" Well, they're not social leaders yet. But it's only
a question of time — generation or two — especially if
time's "money, and if Every Other Week is the success
it's bound to be."

" You don't mean to say, Fulkerson," said March,
8 99

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with a half -doubting, half-daunted laugh, " that lies
your Angel ?"

" That's what I mean to say," returned Fulkerson.
" I ran onto him in Broadway one day last summer.
If you ever saw anybody in your life, you're sure to
meet him in Broadway again, sooner or later. That's
the philosophy of the bunco business; country people
from the same neighborhood are sure to run up againsr
each other the first time they come to New York. I
put out my hand, and I said, i Isn't this Mr. Dryfoos
from Moffitt ?' He didn't seem to have any use for
my hand; he let me keep it, and he squared those old
lips of his till his imperial stuck straight out. Ever
see Bernhardt in ' L'Etrangere ' ? Well, the American
husband is old Dryfoos all over ; no mustache, and hay-
colored chin-whiskers cut slanting from the corners of
his mouth. He cocked his little gray eyes at me, and
says he : ' Yes, young man ; my name is Dryfoos, and
I'm from Moffitt. But I don't want no present of
Longfellow's Works, illustrated ; and I don't want to
taste no fine teas; but I know a policeman that does;
and if you're the son of my old friend Squire Stroh-
feldt, you'd better get out.' ' Well, then,' said I, ' how
would you like to go into the newspaper syndicate busi
ness ?' He gave another look at me, and then he burst
out laughing, and he grabbed my hand, and he just
froze to it. I never saw anybody so glad.

" Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked
him round here to Maroni's to dinner; and before we
broke up for the night we had settled the financial side
of the plan that's brought you to New York. I can
see," said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on
March's face, " that you don't more than half like the
idea of Dryfoos. It ought to give you more confidence

in the thing than you ever had. You needn't be afraid,"

100

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

he added, with some feeling, " that I talked Dryfoos
into the thing for my own advantage."

" Oh, my dear Fulkerson !" March protested, all the
more fervently because he was really a little guilty.

" Well, of course not ! I didn't mean you were.
But I just happened to tell him what I wanted to
go into when I could see my way to it, and he caught
on of his own accord. The fact is," said Fulkerson,
" I guess I'd better make a clean breast of it, now
I'm at it. Dryfoos wanted to get something for that
boy of his to do. He's in railroads himself, and he's in
mines and other things, and he keeps busy, and he can't
bear to have his boy hanging round the house doing
nothing, like as if he was a girl. I told him that the
great object of a rich man was to get his son into just
that fix, but he couldn't seem to see it, and the boy
hated it himself. He's got a good head, and he wanted
to study for the ministry when they were all living
together out on the farm; but his father had the old-
fashioned ideas about that. You know they used to
think that any sort of stuff was good enough to make a
preacher out of; but they wanted the good timber for
business ; and so the old man wouldn't let him. You'll
see the fellow; you'll like him; he's no fool, I can tell
you; and he's going to be our publisher, nominally at
first and actually when I've taught him the ropes a
little."

XII

FULKERSON stopped and looked at March, whom he
saw lapsing into a serious silence. Doubtless he di
vined his uneasiness with the facts that had been given
him to digest. He pulled out his watch and glanced
at it. " See here, how would you like to go up to
Forty-sixth Street with me, and drop in on old Dry-
f oos ? Now's your chance. He's going West to-mor
row, and won't be back for a month or so. They'll all
be glad to see you, and you'll understand things better
when you've seen him and his family. I can't ex
plain."

March reflected a moment. Then he said, with a
wisdom that surprised him, for he would have liked
to yield to the impulse of his curiosity : " Perhaps we'd
better wait till Mrs. March comes down, and let things
take the usual course. The Dryfoos ladies will want
to call on her as the last-comer, and if I treated myself
en gargon now, and paid the first visit, it might com
plicate matters."

" Well, perhaps you're right," said Fulkerson. " I
don't know much about these things, and I don't be
lieve Ma Dryfoos does, either." He was on his legs
lighting another cigarette. " I suppose the girls are
getting themselves up in etiquette, though. Well, then,
let's have a look at the Every Other Week building,
and then, if you like your quarters there, you can go
round and close for Mrs. Green's flat."

102

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

March's dormant allegiance to his wife's wishes had
been roused by his decision in favor of good social
usage. " I don't think I shall take the flat," he
said.

" Well, don't reject it without giving it another look,
anyway. Come on !"

He helped March on with his light overcoat, and
the little stir they made for their departure caught the
notice of the old German ; he looked up from his beer
at them. March was more than ever impressed with
something familiar in his face. In compensation for
his prudence in regard to the Dryfooses he now in
dulged an impulse. He stepped across to where the
old man sat, with his bald head shining like ivory
under the gas-jet, and his fine patriarchal length of
bearded mask taking picturesque lights and shadows,
and put out his hand to him.

" Lindau ! Isn't this Mr. Lindau ?"

The old man lifted himself slowly to his feet with
mechanical politeness, and cautiously took March's
hand. " Yes, my name is Lindau," he said, slowly,
while he scanned March's face. Then he broke into
a long cry. " Ah-h-h-h-h, my clear poy ! my yong
f riendt ! my — my — Idt is Passil Marge, not zo ? Ah,
ha, ha, ha ! How gladt I am to zee you ! Why, I am
gladt! And you rememberdt me? You remember
Schiller, and Goethe, and Uhland ? And Indianapolis ?
You still lif in Indianapolis? It sheers my hardt to
zee you. But you are lidtle oldt, too? Tventy-five
years makes a difference. Ah, I am gladt! Dell me,
idt is Passil Marge, not zo ?"

He looked anxiously into March's face, with a gentle
smile of mixed hope and doubt, and March said : " As
sure as it's Berthold Lindau, and I guess it's you. And
vou remember the old times ? You were as much of

103

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

a boy as I was, Lindau. Are you living in New York ?
Do you recollect how you tried to teach me to fence ?
I don't know how to this day, Lindau. How good you
were, and how patient! Do you remember how we
used to sit up in the little parlor back of your printing-
office, and read Die Rauber and Die Theilung der Erde
and Die Glocke ? And Mrs. Lindau ? Is she with —

" Deadt — deadt long ago. Eight after I got home
from the war — tventy years ago. But tell me, you are
married ? Children ? Yes ! Goodt ! And how oldt
are you now ?"

" It makes me seventeen to see you, Lindau, but I've
got a son nearly as old."

" Ah, ha, ha ! Goodt ! And where do you lif ?"

" Well, I'm just coming to live in New York,"
March, said, looking over at Fulkerson, who had been
watching his interview with the perfunctory smile of
sympathy that people put on at the meeting of old
friends. " I want to introduce you to my friend Mr.
Fulkerson. He and I are going into a literary enter
prise here."

" Ah ! zo ?" said the old man, with polite interest.
He took Fulkerson's proffered hand, and they all stood
talking a few moments together.

Then Fulkerson said, with another look at his watch,
" Well, March, we're keeping Mr. Lindau from his
dinner."

" Dinner !" cried the old man. " Idt's better than
breadt and meadt to see Mr. Marge !"

" I must be going, anyway," said March. " But I
must see you again soon, Lindau. Where do you live ?
I want a long talk."

" And I. You will find me here at dinner-time,"
said the old man. " It is the best place " ; and March

fancied him reluctant to give another address.

" 104

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

To cover his consciousness he answered, gayly :
" Then, it's auf wiedersehen with us. Well !"

"Also!" The old man took his hand, and made a
mechanical movement with his mutilated arm, as if he
would have taken it in a double clasp. He laughed at
himself. " I wanted to gif you the other handt, too,
but I gafe it to your gountry a goodt while ago."

" To my country ?" asked March, with a sense of
pain, and yet lightly, as if it were a joke of the old
man's. " Your country, too, Lindau ?"

The old man turned very grave, and said, almost
coldly, " What gountry hass a poor man got, Mr.
Marge ?"

" Well, you ought to have a share in the one you
helped to save for us rich men, Lindau," March re
turned, still humoring the joke.

The old man smiled sadly, but made no answer as
he sat down again.

" Seems to be a little soured," said Fulkerson, as
they went down the steps. He was one of those Amer
icans whose habitual conception of life is unalloyed
prosperity. When any experience or observation of
his went counter to it he suffered something like phys
ical pain. He eagerly shrugged away the impression
left upon his buoyancy by Lindau, and added to
March's continued silence, " What did I tell you about
meeting every man in New York that you ever knew
before ?"

" I never expected to meet Lindau in the world
again," said March, more to himself than to Fulker
son. " I had an impression that he had been killed
in the war. I almost wish he had been."

" Oh, hello, now !" cried Fulkerson.

March laughed, but went on soberly: " He was a
man predestined to adversity, though. When I first

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

knew him out in Indianapolis he was starving along
with a sick wife and a sick newspaper. It was before
the Germans had come over to the Republicans gen
erally, but Lindau was fighting the anti-slavery battle
just as naturally at Indianapolis in 1858 as he fought
behind the barricades at Berlin in 1848. And yet he
was always such a gentle soul ! And so generous ! He
taught me German for the love of it ; he wouldn't spoil
his pleasure by taking a cent from me ; he seemed to
get enough out of my being young and enthusiastic, and
out of prophesying great things for me. I wonder what
the poor old fellow is doing here, with that one hand
of his ?"

" Not amassing a very ' handsome pittance,' I guess,
as Artemus Ward would say," said Fulkerson, getting
back some of his lightness. " There are lots of two-
handed fellows in New York that are not doing much
better, I guess. Maybe he gets some writing on the
German papers."

" I hope so. He's one of the most accomplished
men ! He used to be a splendid musician — pianist —
and knows eight or ten languages."

" Well, it's astonishing," said Fulkersou, " how much
lumber those Germans can carry around in their heads
all their lives, and never work it up into anything. It's
a pity they couldn't do the acquiring, and let out the use
of their learning to a few bright Americans. We could
make things hum, if we could arrange 'em that way."

He talked on, unheeded by March, who went along
half-consciously tormented by his lightness in the pen
sive memories the meeting with Lindau had called up.
Was this all that sweet, unselfish nature could come to ?
What a homeless old age at that meagre Italian table
d'hote, with that tall glass of beer for a half-hour's
oblivion! That shabby dress, that pathetic mutila-

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tion ! He must have a pension, twelve dollars a month,
or eighteen, from a grateful country. But what else
did lie eke out with ?

" Well, here we are," said Fulkerson, cheerily. He
ran up the steps before March, and opened the car
penter's temporary valve in the door frame, and led the
way into a darkness smelling sweetly of unpainted
wood-work and newly dried plaster; their feet slipped
on shavings and grated on sand. He scratched a match,
and found a candle, and then walked about up and
down stairs, and lectured on the advantages of the place.
He had fitted up bachelor apartments for himself in the
house, and said that he was going to have a flat to let
on the top floor. u I didn't offer it to you because I
supposed you'd be too proud to live over your shop;
and it's too small, anyway; only five rooms."

" Yes, that's too small," said March, shirking the
other point.

" Well, then, here's the room I intend for your of
fice," said Fulkerson, showing him into a large back
parlor one flight up. " You'll have it quiet from the
street noises here, and you can be at home or not, as
you please. There'll be a boy on the stairs to find out.
Xow, you see, this makes the Grosvenor Green flat
practicable, if you want it."

March felt the forces of fate closing about him and
pushing him to a decision. He feebly fought them off
till he could have another look at the flat. Then, baffled
and subdued still more by the unexpected presence of
Mrs. Grosvenor Green herself, who was occupying it
so as to be able to show it effectively, he took it. He
was aware more than ever of its absurdities; he knew
that his wife would never cease to hate it; but he had
suffered one of those eclipses of the imagination to
which men of his temperament are subject, and in

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which he could see no future for his desires. He felt
a comfort in irretrievably committing himself, and ex
changing the burden of indecision for the burden of re
sponsibility.

" I don't know/' said Fulkerson, as they walked
back to his hotel together, " but you might fix it up
with that lone widow and her pretty daughter to take
part of their house here." He seemed to be reminded
of it by the fact of passing the house, and March looked
up at its dark front. He could not have told exactly
why he felt a pang of remorse at the sight, and doubt
less it was more regret for having taken the Grosvenor
Green flat than for not having taken the widow's
rooms. Still, he could not forget her wistfulness when
his wife and he were looking at them, and her disap
pointment when they decided against them. He had
toyed, in his after-talk to Mrs. March, with a sort of
hypothetical obligation they had to modify their plans
so as to meet the widow's want of just such a family
as theirs; they had both said what a blessing it would
be to her, and what a pity they could not do it; but
they had decided very distinctly that they could not.
Now it seemed to him that they might; and he asked
himself whether he had not actually departed as much
from their ideal as if he had taken board with the
widow. Suddenly it seemed to him that his wife asked
him this, too.

" I reckon," said Fulkerson, " that she could have
arranged to give you your meals in your rooms, and
it would have come to about the same thing as house
keeping."

" No sort of boarding can be the same as house
keeping," said March. " I want my little girl to have
the run of a kitchen, and I want the whole family to
have the moral effect of housekeeping. It's demoral-

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izing to board, in every way; it isn't a home, if any
body else takes the care of it off your hands."

" Well, I suppose so," Fulkerson assented ; but
March's words had a hollow ring to himself, and in
his own mind he began to retaliate his dissatisfaction
upon Fulkerson.

He parted from him on the usual terms outwardly,
but he felt obscurely abused by Fulkerson in regard
to the Dryfooses, father and son. He did not know
but Fulkerson had taken an advantage of him in al
lowing him to commit himself to their enterprise with
out fully and frankly telling him who and what his
backer was ; he perceived that with young Dryfoos as
the publisher and Fulkerson as the general director
of the paper there might be very little play for his
own ideas of its conduct. Perhaps it was the hurt to
his vanity involved by the recognition of this fact that
made him forget how little choice he really had in
the matter, and how, since he had not accepted the
offer to edit the insurance paper, nothing remained for
him but to close with Fulkerson. In this moment of
suspicion and resentment he accused Fulkerson of
hastening his decision in regard to the Grosvenor
Green apartment; he now refused to consider it a de
cision, and said to himself that if he felt disposed to
do so he would send Mrs. Green a note reversing it in
the morning. But he put it all off till morning with
his clothes, when he went to bed ; he put off even think
ing what his wife would say; he cast Fulkerson and
his constructive treachery out of his mind, too, and in
vited into it some pensive reveries of the past, when
he still stood at the parting of the ways, and could take
this path or that. In his middle life this was not pos
sible ; he must follow the path chosen long ago, wher
ever it led. He was not master of himself, as he once

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seemed, but the servant of those he loved; if he could
do what he liked, perhaps he might renounce this whole
New York enterprise, and go off somewhere out of the
reach of care ; but he could not do what he liked, that
was very clear. In the pathos of this conviction he
dwelt compassionately upon the thought of poor old
Lindau; he resolved to make him accept a handsome
sum of money — more than he could spare, something
that he would feel the loss of — in payment of the les
sons in German and fencing given so long ago. At the
usual rate for such lessons, his debt, with interest for
twenty-odd years, would run very far into the hundreds.
Too far, he perceived, for his wife's joyous approval ;
he determined not to add the interest; or he believed
that Lindau would refuse the interest; he put a fine
speech in his mouth, making him do so ; and after that
he got Lindau employment on Every Other Week, and
took care of him till he died.

Through all his melancholy and munificence he was
aware of sordid anxieties for having taken the Gros-
venor Green apartment. These began to assume vis
ible, tangible shapes as he drowsed, and to became
personal entities, from which he woke, with little starts,
to a realization of their true nature, and then suddenly
fell fast asleep.

In the accomplishment of the events which his rev
erie played with, there was much that retroactively
stamped it with prophecy, but much also that was better
than he forboded. He found that with regard to the
Grosvenor Green apartment he had not allowed for his
wife's willingness to get any sort of roof over her head
again after the removal from their old home, or for the
alleviations that grow up through mere custom. The
practical workings of the apartment Avere not so bad;
it had its good points, and after the first sensation of

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oppression in it they began to feel the convenience of
its arrangement. They were at that time of life when
people first turn to their children's opinion with defer
ence, and, in the loss of keenness in their own likes and
dislikes, consult the young preferences which are still
so sensitive. It went far to reconcile Mrs. March to
the apartment that her children were pleased with its
novelty; when this wore off for them, she had herself
begun to find it much more easily manageable than a
house. After she had put away several barrels of gim-
cracks, and folded up screens and rugs and skins, and
carried them all off to the little dark store-room which
the flat developed, she perceived at once a roominess
and coziness in it unsuspected before. Then, when
people began to call, she had a pleasure, a superiority,
in saying that it was a furnished apartment, and in
disclaiming all responsibility for the upholstery and
decoration. If March was by, she always explained
that it was Mr. March's fancy, and amiably laughed it
off with her callers as a mannish eccentricity. Nobody
really seemed to think it otherwise than pretty; and
this again was a triumph for Mrs. March, because it
showed how inferior the New York taste was to the
Boston taste in such matters.

March submitted silently to his punishment, and
laughed with her before company at his own eccen
tricity. She had been so preoccupied with the ad
justment of the family to its new quarters and cir
cumstances that the time passed for laying his
misgivings, if they were misgivings, about Fulkerson
before her, and when an occasion came for expressing
them they had themselves passed in the anxieties of
getting forward the first number of Every Other Week.
He kept these from her, too, and the business that
brought them to New York had apparently dropped into

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

abeyance before the questions of domestic economy that
presented and absented themselves. March knew his
wife to be a woman of good mind and in perfect sym
pathy with him, but he understood the limitations of
her perspective ; and if he wras not too wise, he was too
experienced to intrude upon it any affairs of his till her
own were reduced to the right order and proportion.
It would have been folly to talk to her of Fulkerson's
con jectur able uncandor while she was in doubt whether
her cook would like the kitchen, or her two servants
would consent to room together ; and till it was decided
what school Tom should go to, and whether Bella should
have lessons at home or not, the relation which March
was to bear to the Dryfooses, as owner and publisher,
was not to be discussed with his wife. He might drag
it in, but he was aware that with her mind distracted
by more immediate interests he could not get from her
that judgment, that reasoned divination, which he re
lied upon so much. She would try, she would do her
best, but the result would be a view clouded arid dis
colored by the effort she must make.

He put the whole matter by, and gave himself to
the details of the work before him. In this he found
not only escape, but reassurance, for it became more
and more apparent that whatever was nominally the
structure of the business, a man of his qualifications
and his instincts could not have an insignificant place
in it. He had also the consolation of liking his work,
and of getting an instant grasp of it that grew con
stantly firmer and closer. The joy of knowing that he
had not made a mistake was great. In giving rein to
ambitions long forborne he seemed to get back to the
youth when he had indulged them first ; and after half
a lifetime passed in pursuits alien to his nature, he was
feeling the serene happiness of being mated through his

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

work to his early love. From the outside the spectacle
might have had its pathos, and it is not easy to justify
such an experiment as he had made at his time of life,
except upon the ground where he rested from its con
sideration — the ground of necessity.

His work was more in his thoughts than himself,
however, and as the time for the publication of the
first number of his periodical came nearer, his cares
all centred upon it. Without fixing any date, Fulker-
son had announced it, and pushed his announcements
with the shameless vigor of a born advertiser. He
worked his interest with the press to the utmost, and
paragraphs of a variety that did credit to his ingenuity
were afloat everywhere. Some of them were speciously
unfavorable in tone ; they criticised and even ridiculed
the principles on which the new departure in literary
journalism was based. Others defended it; others yet
denied that this rumored principle was really the prin
ciple. All contributed to make talk. All proceeded
from the same fertile invention.

March observed with a degree of mortification that
the talk was -very little of it in the New York press ;
there the references to the novel enterprise were slight
and cold. But Fulkerson said : " Don't mind that, old
man. It's the whole country that makes or breaks a
thing like this; New York has very little to do with
it. Now if it were a play, it would be different. N"ew
York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make
or break a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine.
The great mass of the readers are outside of New York,
and the rural districts are what we have got to go for.
They don't read much in New York; they write, and
talk about what they've written. Don't you worry."

The rumor of Fulkerson's connection with the enter
prise accompanied many of the paragraphs, and ho was

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able to stay March's thirst for employment by turning
over to him from day to day heaps of the manuscripts
which began to pour in from his old syndicate writers,
as well as from adventurous volunteers all over the
country. With these in hand March began practically
to plan the first number, and to concrete a general
scheme from the material and the experience they fur
nished. They had intended to issue the first number
with the new year, and if it had been an affair of lit
erature alone, it would have been very easy ; but it wras
the art leg they limped on, as Fulkerson phrased it.
They had not merely to deal with the question of
specific illustrations for this article or that, but to
decide the whole character of their illustrations, and
first of all to get a design for a cover which should
both ensnare the heedless and captivate the fastidious.
These things did not come properly within March's
province — that had been clearly understood — and for a
while Fulkerson tried to run the art leg himself. The
phrase was again his, but it was simpler to make the
phrase than to run the leg. The difficult generation,
at once stiff-backed and slippery, with which he had
to do in this endeavor, reduced even so buoyant an
optimist to despair, and after wasting some valuable
Aveeks in trying to work the artists himself, he deter
mined to get an artist to work them. But what artist ?
It could not be a man with fixed reputation and a fol
lowing: he would be too costly, and would have too
many enemies among his brethren, even if he would
consent to undertake the job. Fulkerson had a man
in mind, an artist, too, who would have been the very
thing if he had been the thing at all. He had talent
enough, and his sort of talent would reach round the
whole situation, but, as Fulkerson said, he \vas as many
kinds of an ass as he was kinds of an artist.

PAKT SECOND

THE evening when March closed with Mrs. Green's
reduced offer, and decided to take her apartment, the
widow whose lodgings he had rejected sat with her
daughter in an upper room at the back of her house.
In the shaded glow of the drop-light she was sewing,
and the girl was drawing at the same table. From time
to time, as they talked, the girl lifted her head and
tilted it a little on one side so as to get some desired
effect of her work.

" It's a mercy the cold weather holds off," said the
mother. " We should have to light the furnace, unless
we wanted to scare everybody away with a cold house ;
and I don't know who would take care of it, or what
would become of us, every way."

" They seem to have been scared away from a house
that wasn't cold," said the girl. " Perhaps they might
like a cold one. But it's too early for cold yet. It's
only just in the beginning of November."

" The Messenger says they've had a sprinkling of
snow."

" Oh yes, at St. Barnaby ! I don't know when they
don't have sprinklings of snow there. I'm awfully glad
we haven't got that winter before us."

The widow sighed as mothers do who feel the con
trast their experience opposes to the hopeful reckless
ness of such talk as this. " We may have a worse
winter here," she said, darkly.

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" Then I couldn't stand it," said the girl, " and I
should go in for lighting out to Florida double-quick."

" And how would you get to Florida ?" demanded her
mother, severely.

" Oh, by the usual conveyance — Pullman vestibuled
train, I suppose. What makes you so blue, mamma?"
The girl was all the time sketching away, rubbing out,
lifting her head for the effect, and then bending it over
her work again without looking at her mother.

" I am not blue, Alma. But I cannot endure this —
this hopefulness of yours."

" Why ? What harm does it do ?"

" Harm ?" echoed the mother.

Pending the effort she must make in saying, the girl
cut in : " Yes, harm. You've kept your despair dusted
off and ready for use at an instant's notice ever since
we came, and what good has it done? I'm going to
keep on hoping to the bitter end. That's what papa
did."

It was what the Rev. Archibald Leighton had done
with all the consumptive's buoyancy. The morning he
died he told them that now he had turned the point and
was really going to get well. The cheerfulness was not
only in his disease, but in his temperament. Its ex
cess was always a little against him in his church-
work, and Mrs. Leighton was right enough in feeling
that if it had not been for the ballast of her instinctive
despondency he would have made shipwreck of such
small chances of prosperity as befell him in life. It
was not from him that his daughter got her talent,
though he had left her his temperament intact of his
widow's legal thirds. He was one of those men of
whom the country people say when he is gone that the
woman gets along better without him. Mrs. Leighton
had long eked out their income by taking a summer

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boarder or two, as a great favor, into her family ; and
when the greater need came, she frankly gave up her
house to the summer-folks (as they call them in the
country), and managed it for their comfort from the
small quarter of it in which she shut herself up with
her daughter.

The notion of shutting up is an exigency of the
rounded period. The fact is, of course, that Alma
Leighton was not shut up in any sense whatever. She
was the pervading light, if not force, of the house. She
was a good cook, and she managed the kitchen with the
help of an Irish girl, while her mother looked after the
rest of the housekeeping. But she was not systematic ;
she had inspiration hut riot discipline, and her mother
mourned more over the days when Alma left the whole
dinner to the Irish girl than she rejoiced in those when
one of Alma's great thoughts took form in a chicken-
pie of incomparable savor or in a matchless pudding.
The off-days came when her artistic nature was express
ing itself in charcoal, for she drew to the admiration
of all among the lady boarders who could not draw.
The others had their reserves; they readily conceded
that Alma had genius, but they were sure she needed
instruction. On the other hand, they were not so rad
ical as to agree with the old painter who came every
summer to paint the elms of the St. Barnaby meadows.
He contended that she needed to be a man in order to
amount to anything ; but in this theory he was opposed
by an authority of his own sex, whom the lady sketchers
believed to speak with more impartiality in a matter
concerning them as much as Alma Leighton. He said
that instruction would do, and he was not only younger
and handsomer, but he was fresher from the schools
than old Harrington, who, even the lady sketchers could
see, painted in an obsolescent manner. His name was

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Beaton — Angus Beaton ; but he was not Scotch, or not
more Scotch than Mary Queen of Scots was. His
father was a Scotchman, but Beaton was born in Syra
cuse, New York, and it had taken only three years in
Paris to obliterate many traces of native and ancestral
manner in him. He wore his black beard cut shorter
than his mustache, and a little pointed; he stood with
his shoulders well thrown back and with a lateral curve
of his person when he talked about art, which would
alone have carried conviction even if he had not had
a thick, dark bang coming almost to the browTs of his
mobile gray eyes, and had not spoken English with
quick, staccato impulses, so as to give it the effect of
epigrammatic and sententious French. One of the
ladies said that you always thought of him as having
spoken French after it was over, and accused herself
of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of him. None
of the ladies was afraid of him, though they could not
believe that he was really so deferential to their work
as he seemed ; and they knew, when he would not criti
cise Mr. Harrington's work, that he was just acting
from principle.

They may or may not have known the deference
with which he treated Alma's work; but the girl her
self felt that his abrupt, impersonal comment recog
nized her as a real sister in art. He told her she ought
to come to New York, and draw in the League, or get
into some painter's private class; and it was the sense
of duty thus appealed to which finally resulted in the
hazardous experiment she and her mother were now
making. There were no logical breaks in the chain of
their reasoning from past success with boarders in St.
Barnaby to future success with boarders in New York.
Of course the outlay was much greater. The rent of
the furnished house they had taken was such that if

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they failed their experiment would be little less than
ruinous.

But they were not going to fail ; that was what Alma
contended, with a hardy courage that her mother some
times felt almost invited failure, if it did not deserve
it. She was one of those people who believe that if you
dread harm enough it is less likely to happen. She
acted on this superstition as if it were a religion.

" If it had not been for my despair, as you call it,
Alma," she answered, " I don't know where we should
have been now."

" I suppose we should have been in St. Barnaby,"
said the girl. " And if it's worse to be in New York,
you see what your despair's done, mamma. But what's
the use ? You meant well, and I don't blame you. You
can't expect even despair to come out always just the
way you want it. Perhaps you've used too much of
it." The girl laughed, and Mrs. Leighton laughed, too.
Like every one else, she was not merely a prevailing
mood, as people are apt to be in books, but was an
irregularly spheroidal character, with surfaces that
caught the different lights of circumstance and re
flected them. Alma got up and took a pose before the
mirror, which she then transferred to her sketch. The
room was pinned about with other sketches, which
showed with fantastic indistinctness in the shaded gas
light. Alma held up the drawing. " How do you
like it?"

Mrs. Leighton bent forward over her sewing to look
at it. " You've got the man's face rather weak."

" Yes, that's so. Either I see all the hidden weak
ness that's in men's natures, and bring it to the sur
face in their figures, or else I put my own weakness into
them. Either way, it's a drawback to their presenting

a truly manly appearance. As long as I have one of

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the miserable objects before me, I can draw him; but
as soon as his back's turned I get to putting ladies into
men's clothes. I should think you'd be scandalized,
mamma, if you were a really feminine person. It
must be your despair that helps you to bear up. But
what's the matter with the young lady in young lady's
clothes? Any dust on her?"

" What expressions !" said Mrs. Leighton. " Keally,
Alma, for a refined girl you are the most unrefined!"

" Go on — about the girl in the picture !" said Alma,
slightly knocking her mother on the shoulder, as she
stood over her.

" I don't see anything to her. What's she doing ?"

" Oh, just being made love to, I suppose."

" She's perfectly insipid !"

" You're awfully articulate, mamma ! Now, if Mr.
Wetmore were to criticise that picture he'd draw a circle
round it in the air, and look at it through that, and
tilt his head first on one side and then on the other,
and then look at you, as if you were a figure in it, and
then collapse awhile, and moan a little and gasp,
' Isn't your young lady a little too — too—' and then
he'd try to get the word out of you, and groan and
suffer some more ; and you'd say, ' She is, rather,' and
that would give him courage, and he'd say, i I don't
mean that she's so very — ' Of course not.' f You
understand ?' ' Perfectly. I see it myself, now.'
' Well, then ' — and he'd take your pencil and begin to
draw — ' I should give her a little more — Ah ?' * Yes,
I see the difference.' ' You see the difference ?' And
he'd go off to some one else, and you'd know that you'd
been doing the wishy - washiest thing in the world,
though he hadn't spoken a word of criticism, and
couldn't. But he wouldn't have noticed the expres
sion at all; he'd have shown you where your drawing

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

was bad. He doesn't care for what he calls the lit
erature of a thing; he says that will take care of itself
if the drawing's good. He doesn't like my doing these
chic things; hut I'm going to keep it up, for I think
it's the nearest way to illustrating."

She took her sketch and pinned it up on the door.

" And has Mr. Beaton been about, yet ?" asked her
mother.

" No," said the girl, with her back still turned ; and
she added, " I believe he's in New York ; Mr. Wet-
more's seen him."

" It's a little strange he doesn't call."

" It would be if he were not an artist. But artists
never do anything like other people. He was on his
good behavior while he was with us, and he's a great
deal more conventional than most of them; but even
he can't keep it up. That's what makes me really think
that women can never amount to anything in art. They
keep all their appointments, and fulfil all their duties
just as if they didn't know anything about art. Well,
most of them don't. We've got that new model to-day."

" What new model ?"

" The one Mr. Wetmore was telling us about — the
old German ; he's splendid. He's got the most beauti
ful head ; just like the old masters' things. He used
to be Humphrey Williams's model for his Biblical
pieces; but since he's dead, the old man hardly gets
anything to do. Mr. Wetmore says there isn't any
body in the Bible that Williams didn't paint him as.
He's the Law and the Prophets in all his Old Testa
ment pictures, and he's Joseph, Peter, Judas Iscariot,
and the Scribes and Pharisees in the New."

" It's a good thing people don't know how artists
work, or some of the most sacred pictures would have
no influence," said Mrs. Leighton.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Why, of ccmrse not !" cried the girl. " And the
influence is the last thing a painter thinks of — or
supposes he thinks of. What he knows he's anxious
about is the drawing and the color. But people will
never understand how simple artists are. When I re
flect what a complex and sophisticated being I am, I'm
afraid I can never come to anything in art. Or I
should be if I hadn't genius."

" Do you think Mr. Beaton is very simple ?" asked
Mrs. Leighton.

" Mr. Wetmore doesn't think he's very much of an
artist. He thinks he talks too well. They believe that
if a man can express himself clearly he can't paint."

" And what do you believe ?"

" Oh, I can express myself, /oo."

The mother seemed to be satisfied with this evasion.
After a while she said, " I presume he will call when he
gets settled."

The girl made no answer to this. " One of the girls
says that old model is an educated man. He was in
the war, and lost a hand. Doesn't it seem a pity for
such a man to have to sit to a class of affected geese
like us as a model ? I declare it makes me sick. And
we shall keep him a week, and pay him six or seven
dollars for the use of his grand old head, and then
what will he do ? The last time he was regularly em
ployed was when Mr. Mace was working at his Damas
cus Massacre. Then he wanted so many Arab sheiks
and Christian elders that he kept old Mr. Lindau
steadily employed for six months. Now he has to pick
up odd jobs where he can."

" I suppose he has his pension," said Mrs. Leighton.

"No; one of the girls"-— that was the way Alma
always described her fellow-students — " says he has no

pension. He didn't apply for it for a long time, and

"

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

then there was a hitch about it, and it was somethinged
— vetoed, I believe she said/7

" Who vetoed it ?" asked Mrs. Leighton, with some
curiosity about the process, which she held in reserve.

" I don't know — whoever vetoes things. I wonder
what Mr. Wetmore does think of us — his class. We
must seem perfectly crazy. There isn't one of us really
knows what she's doing it for, or what she expects to
happen when she's done it. I suppose every one thinks
she has genius. I know the Nebraska widow does, for
she says that unless you have genius it isn't the, least
use. Everybody's puzzled to know what she does with
her baby when she's at work — whether she gives it
soothing syrup. I wonder how Mr. Wetmore can keep
from laughing in our faces. I know he does behind our
backs."

Mrs. Leighton's mind wandered back to another
point. " Then if he says Mr. Beaton can't paint, I
presume he doesn't respect him very much."

" Oh, he never said he couldn't paint. But I know
he thinks so. He says he's an excellent critic."

" Alma," her mother said, with the effect of break
ing off, " what do you suppose is the reason he hasn't
been near us?"

" Why, I don't know, mamma, except that it would
have been natural for another person to come, and he's
an artist — at least, artist enough for that."

" That doesn't account for it altogether. He was
very nice at St. Barnaby, and seemed so interested in
you — your work."

" Plenty of people were nice at St. Barnaby. That
rich Mrs. Horn couldn't contain her joy when she heard
we were coming to New York, but she hasn't poured in
upon us a great deal since we £ot here."

" But that's different. She's very fashionable, and

125

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

she's taken up with her own set. But Mr. Beaton's one
of our kind."

" Thank you. Papa wasn't quite a tombstone-cutter,
mamma."

" That makes it all the harder to bear. He can't
be ashamed of us. Perhaps he doesn't know where
we are."

" Do you wish to send him your card, mamma ?"
The girl flushed and towered in scorn of the idea.

" Why, no, Alma," returned her mother.

" Well, then," said Alma.

But Mrs. Leighton was not so easily quelled. She
had got her mind on Mr. Beaton, and she could not
detach it at once. Besides, she was one of those women
(they are commoner than the same sort of men) whom
it does not pain to take out their most intimate thoughts
and examine them in the light of other people's opin
ions. " But I don't see how he can behave so. He
must know that — "

" That what,, mamma ?" demanded the girl.

" That he influenced us a great deal in coming — "

" He didn't. If he dared to presume to think such
a thing—"

" Now, Alma," said her mother, with the clinging
persistence of such natures, " you know he did. And
it's no use for you to pretend that we didn't count upon
him in — in every way. You may not have noticed his
attentions, and I don't say you did, but others certainly
did; and I must say that I didn't expect he would
drop us so."

" Drop us !" cried Alma, in a fury. " Oh !"

" Yes, drop us, Alma. He must know where we
are. Of course, Mr. Wetmore's spoken to him about
you, and it's a shame that he hasn't been near us. I
should have thought common gratitude, common de-

126

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

cency, would have brought him after — after all we did
for him."

"We did nothing for him — nothing! He paid his
board, and that ended it."

" No, it didn't, Alma. You know what he used to
say — about its being like home, and all that; and I
must say that after his attentions to you, and all the
things you told me he said, I expected something very
dif-

A sharp peal of the door - bell thrilled through the
house, and as if the pull of the bell-wire had twitched
her to her feet, Mrs. Leigh ton sprang up and grappled
with her daughter in their common terror.

They both glared at the clock and made sure that
it was five minutes after nine. Then they abandoned
themselves some moments to the unrestricted play of
their apprehensions.

II

" WHY, Alma," whispered the mother, " who in the
world can it be at this time of night I You don't
suppose he —

" Well, I'm not going to the door, anyhow, mother,
I don't care who it is; and, of course, he wouldn't be
such a goose as to come at this hour." She put on a
look of miserable trepidation, and shrank back from
the door, while the hum of the bell died away in the
hall.

" What shall we do ?" asked Mrs. Leighton, help
lessly.

" Let him go away — whoever they are," said Alma.

Another and more peremptory ring forbade them
refuge in this simple expedient.

" Oh, dear ! what shall we do ? Perhaps it's a
despatch." ,

The conjecture moved Alma to no more than a rigid
stare. " I shall not go," she said. A third ring more
insistent than the others followed, and she said : " You
go ahead, mamma, and I'll come behind to scream if
it's anybody. We can look through the side-lights at
the door first"

Mrs. Leighton fearfully led the way from the back
chamber where they had been sitting, and slowly de
scended the stairs. Alma came behind and turned up
the hall gas-jet with a sudden flash that made them
both jump a little. The gas inside rendered it more

128

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

difficult to tell who was on the threshold, but Mrs.
Leighton decided from a timorous peep through the
scrims that it was a lady and gentleman. Something
in this distribution of sex emboldened her ; she took her
life in her hand, and opened the door.

The lady spoke. " Does Mrs. Leighton live heah ?"
she said, in a rich, throaty voice; and she feigned a
reference to the agent's permit she held in her hand.

" Yes," said Mrs. Leighton ; she mechanically oc
cupied the doorway, while Alma already quivered
behind her with impatience of her impoliteness.

" Oh," said the lady, who began to appear more and
more a young lady, " Ah didn't know but Ah had
mistaken the hoase. Ah suppose it's rather late to see
the apawtments, and Ah most ask you to pawdon us."
She put this tentatively, with a delicately growing
recognition of Mrs. Leighton as the lady of the house,
and a humorous intelligence of the situation in the
glance she threw Alma over her mother's shoulder.
" Ah'm afraid we most have frightened you."

" Oh, not at all," said Alma; and at the same time
her mother said, " Will you walk in, please ?"

The gentleman promptly removed his hat and made
the Leightons an inclusive bow. " You awe very kind,
madam, and I am sorry for the trouble we awe giving
you." He was tall and severe - looking, with a gray,
trooperish mustache and iron-gray hair, and, as Alma
decided, iron - gray eyes. His daughter was short,
plump, and fresh-colored, with an effect of liveliness
that did not all express itself in her broad-vowelled,
rather formal speech, with its odd valuations of some
of the auxiliary verbs, and its total elision of the
canine letter.

" We awe from the Soath," she said, " and we ar
rived this mawning, but we got this cyahd from the

129 "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

brokak just befo' dinnah, and so we awe rathah
late."

" Not at all ; it's only nine o'clock," said Mrs. Leigh-
ton. She looked up from the card the young lady had
given her, and explained, " We haven't got in our ser
vants yet, and we had to answer the bell ourselves,
and—"

" You were frightened, of coase," said the young
lady, caressingly.

The gentleman said they ought not to have come so
late, and he offered some formal apologies.

" We should have been just as much scared any time
after five o'clock," Alma said to the sympathetic in
telligence in the girl's face.

She laughed out. " Of coase ! Ah would have my
hawt in my moath all day long, too, if Ah was living
in a big hoase alone."

A moment of stiffness followed ; Mrs. Leighton
would have liked to withdraw from the intimacy of
the situation, but she did not know how. It was very
well for these people to assume to be what they pre
tended; but, she reflected too late, she had no proof of
it except the agent's permit. They were all standing
in the hall together, and she prolonged the awkward
pause while she examined the permit. " You are Mr.
Woodburn ?" she asked, in a way that Alma felt im
plied he might not be.

" Yes, madam ; from Charlottesboag, Virginia," he
answered, with the slight umbrage a man shows when
the strange cashier turns his check over and questions
him before cashing it.

Alma writhed internally, but outwardly remained
subordinate; she examined the other girl's dress, and
decided in a superficial consciousness that she had made

her own bonnet.

130

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I shall be glad to show you my rooms,7' said Mrs.
Leightoii, Avith an irrelevant sigh. " You must excuse1
their being not just as I should wish them. We're
hardly settled yet."

" Don't speak of it, madam," said the gentleman,
" if you can overlook the trouble we awe giving you at
such an unseasonable houah."

" Ah'm a hoasekeepah mahself," Miss Woodburn
joined in, " and Ah know ho' to accyoant fo' every
thing."

Mrs. Leighton led the way up-stairs, and the young
lady decided upon the large front room and small side
room on the third story. She said she could take the
small one, and the other was so large that her father
could both sleep and work in it. She seemed not
ashamed to ask if Mrs. Leighton's price was inflexible,
but gave way laughing when her father refused to have
any bargaining, with a haughty self-respect which he
softened to deference for Mrs. Leighton. His impul
siveness opened the way for some confidence from her,
and before the affair was arranged she was enjoying
in her quality of clerical widow the balm of the
Virginians' reverent sympathy. They said they were
church people themselves.

" Ah don't know what yo' mothah means by yo'
lioase not being in oddah," the young lady said to
x\lma as they went down-stairs together. " Ah'm a
great hoasekeepah mahself, and Ah mean what Ah say."

They had all turned mechanically into the room
where the Leightons were sitting when the Wood-
burns rang. Mr. Woodburn consented to sit down,
and he remained listening to Mrs. Leighton while his
daughter bustled up to the sketches pinned round the
room arid questioned Alma about them.

" Ah suppose you awe going to be a great awtust ?"

10 "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

she said, in friendly banter, when Alma owned to
having done the things. " Ah've a great notion to take
a few lessons mahself. Who's yo' teachah?"

Alma said she was drawing in Mr. Wetmore's class,
and Miss Woodburn said: "Well, it's just beautiful,
Miss Leighton; it's grand. Ah suppose it's raght ex
pensive, now? Mali goodness! we have to cyoant the
coast so much nowadays ; it seems to me we do nothing
but cyoant it. Ah'd like to bah something once with
out askin' the price."

" Well, if you didn't ask it," said Alma, " I don't
believe Mr. Wetmore would ever know what the price
of his lessons was. He has to think, when you ask
him."

" Why, he most be chomming," said Miss Wood-
burn. " Perhaps Ah maght get the lessons for noth
ing from him. Well, Ah believe in my soul Ah'll trah.
Now ho' did you begin ? and ho' do you expect to get
anything oat of it ?" She turned on Alma eyes brim
ming with a shrewd mixture of fun and earnest, and
Alma made note of the fact that she had an early
nineteenth-century face, round, arch, a little coquettish,
but extremely sensible and unspoiled-looking, such as
used to be painted a good deal in miniature at that-
period; a tendency of her brown hair to twine and
twist at the temples helped the effect ; a high comb
would have completed it, Alma felt, if she had her
bonnet off. It was almost a Yankee country-girl type ;
but perhaps it appeared so to Alma because it was, like
that, pure Anglo-Saxon. Alma herself, with her dull,
dark skin, slender in figure, slow in speech, with aristo
cratic forms in her long hands, and the oval of her
fine face pointed to a long chin, felt herself much more
Southern in style than this blooming, bubbling, bustling

Virginian.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I don't know/' she answered, slowly.

" Going to take po'traits," suggested Miss Wood-
burn, " or just paint the ahdeal ?" A demure bur
lesque lurked in her tone.

" I suppose I don't expect to paint at all," said Alma.
" I'm going to illustrate books — if anybody will let me."

" Ah should think they'd just joamp at you," said
Miss Woodburn. " Ah'll tell you what let's do, Miss
Leighton: you make some pictures, and Ah'll wrahte
a book fo' them. Ah've got to do something. Ah
maght as well wrahte a book. You know we South
erners have all had to go to woak. But Ah don't mand
it. I tell papa I shouldn't ca' fo' the disgrace of bein'
poo' if it wasn't fo' the inconvenience."

" Yes, it's inconvenient," said Alma ; " but you for
get it when you're at work, don't you think?"

" Mah, yes ! Perhaps that's one reason why poo'
people have to woak so hawd — to keep their mands off
their poverty."

The girls both, tittered, and turned from talking in
a low tone with their backs toward their elders, and
faced them.

" Well, Madison," said Mr. Woodburn, " it is time
we should go. I bid you good-night, madam," he bowed
to Mrs. Leighton. " Good-night," he bowed again to
Alma.

His daughter took leave of them in formal phrase,
but with a jolly cordiality of manner that deformalized
it. " We shall be roand raght soon in the mawning,
then," she threatened at the door.

" We shall be all ready for you," Alma called after
her down the steps.

" Well, Alma ?" her mother asked, when the door
closed upon them.

" She doesn't know any more about arl" said Alma,

133

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" than — nothing at all. But she's jolly and good-
hearted. She praised everything that was bad in my
sketches, and said she was going to take lessons her
self. When a person talks about taking lessons, as if
they could learn it, you know where they belong
artistically."

Mrs. Leighton shook her head with a sigh. " I wish
I knew where they belonged financially. We shall
have to get in two girls at once. I shall have to go
out the first thing in the morning, and then our troubles
will begin."

" Well, didn't you want them to begin ? I will stay
home and help you get ready. Our prosperity couldn't
begin without the troubles, if you mean boarders, and
boarders mean servants. I shall be very glad to be
afflicted with a cook for a while myself."

" Yes ; but we don't know anything about these peo
ple, or whether they will be able to pay us. Did she
talk as if they were well off ?"

" She talked as if they were poor ; poo' she called it."

" Yes, how queerly she pronounced," said Mrs.
Leighton. " Well, I ought to have told them that I
required the first week in advance."

" Mamma ! If that's the way you're going to act — "

" Oh, of course, I couldn't, after he wouldn't let her
bargain for the rooms. I didn't like that."

" / did. And you can see that they were perfect
ladies; or at least one of them." Alma laughed at
herself, but her mother did not notice.

" Their being ladies won't help if they've got no
money. It '11 make it all the worse."

" Very well, then ; we have no money, either. We're
a match for them any day there. We can show them
that two can play at that game."

Ill

ANGUS BEATON'S studio looked at first glance like
many other painters' studios. A gray wall quad-
rangularly vaulted to a large north light; casts of
feet, hands, faces hung to nails about; prints, sketches
in oil and water-color stuck here and there lower down ;
a rickety table, with paint and palettes and bottles of
varnish and siccative tossed comfortlessly on it; an
easel, with a strip of some faded medieval silk trail
ing from it ; a lay figure simpering in incomplete naked
ness, with its head on one side, and a stocking on one
leg, and a Japanese dress dropped before it; dusty
rugs and skins kicking over the varnished floor; can
vases faced to the mop-board; an open trunk overflow
ing with costumes: these features one might notice
anywhere. But, besides, there was a bookcase with an
unusual number of books in it, and there was an open
colonial writing-desk, claw-footed, brass-handled, and
scutcheoned, with foreign periodicals — French and
English — littering its leaf, and some pages of manu
script scattered among them. Above all, there was a
sculptor's revolving stand, supporting a bust which
Beaton was modelling, with an eye fixed as simul
taneously as possible on the clay and on the head of
the old man who sat on the platform beside it.

Few men have been able to get through the world
with several gifts to advantage in all ; and most men
seem handicapped for the race if they have more than

135

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

one. But they are apparently immensely interested as
well as distracted by them. When Beaton was writing,
he would have agreed, up to a certain point, with any
one who said literature was his proper expression ; but,
then, when he was painting, up to a certain point, he
would have maintained against the world that he was a
colorist, and supremely a colorist. At the certain point
in either art he was apt to break away in a frenzy of
disgust and wreak himself upon some other. In these
moods he sometimes designed elevations of buildings,
very striking, very original, very chic, very everything
but habitable. It was in this way that he had tried his
hand on sculpture, which he had at first approached
rather slightingly as a mere decorative accessory of
architecture. But it had grown in his respect till lie
maintained that the accessory business ought to be all
the other way: that temples should be raised to en
shrine statues, not statues made to ornament temples ;
that was putting the cart before the horse with a ven
geance. This was when he had carried a plastic study
so far that the sculptors who saw it said that Beaton
might have been an architect, but would certainly never
be a sculptor. At the same time he did some hurried,
nervous things that had a popular charm, and that sold
in plaster reproductions, to the profit of another.
Beaton justly despised the popular charm in these,
as well as in the paintings he sold from time to time;
he said it was flat burglary to have taken money for
them, and he would have been living almost wholly
upon the bounty of the old tombstone-cutter in Syra
cuse if it had not been for the syndicate letters which
he supplied to Fulkerson for ten dollars a week.

They were very well done, but he hated doing them
after the first two or three, and had to be punched up
for them bv Fulkerson, who did not cease to prize

136

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

them, and who never failed to punch him up. Beaton
being what lie was, Fulkerson was his creditor as well
as patron; and Fulkerson being what he was, had an
enthusiastic patience with the elusive, facile, adaptable,
unpractical nature of Beaton. He was very proud of
his art-letters, as he called them; but then Fulkerson
was proud of everything he secured for his syndicate.
The fact that he had secured it gave it value; he felt
as if he had written it himself.

One art trod upon another's heels with Beaton. The
day before he had rushed upon canvas the conception
of a picture which he said to himself was glorious,
and to others (at the table d'hote of Maroni) was not
bad. He had worked at it in a fury till the light failed
him, and he execrated the dying day. But he lit his
lamp and transferred the process of his thinking from
the canvas to the opening of the syndicate letter which
he knew Fulkerson would be coming for in the morn
ing. He remained talking so long after dinner in the
same strain as he had painted and written in that he
could not finish his letter that night. The next morn
ing, while he was making his tea for breakfast, the
postman brought him a letter from his father enclos
ing a little check, and begging him with tender, almost
deferential, urgence to come as lightly upon him as
possible, for just now his expenses were very heavy.
It brought tears of shame into Beaton's eyes — the fine,
smouldering, floating eyes that many ladies admired,
under the thick bang — and he said to himself that if
he were half a man he would go home and go to work
cutting gravestones in his father's shop. But he would
wait, at least, to finish his picture ; and as a sop to his
conscience, to stay its immediate ravening, he resolved
to finish that syndicate letter first, and borrow enough
money from Fulkerson to be able to send his father's

137

A TTAZAKT) OF NEW FORTUNES

check back; or, if not that, then to return the sum of
it partly in Fulkerson's check. While he still teemed
with both of these good intentions the old man from
whom he was modelling his head of Judas came, and
Beaton saw that he must get through with him before
he finished either the picture or the letter; he would
have to pay him for the time, anyway. He utilized
the remorse with which he was tingling to give his
Judas an expression which he found novel in the treat
ment of that character — a look of such touching, ap
pealing self-abhorrence that Beaton's artistic joy in it
amounted to rapture; between the breathless moments
when he wrorked in dead silence for an effect that was
trying to escape him, he sang and whistled fragments
of comic opera.

In one of the hushes there came a blow on the out
side of the door that made Beaton jump, and swear
with a modified profanity that merged itself in apos-
trophic prayer. He knew it must be Fulkerson, and
after roaring " Come in !" he said to the model, " That
7Il do this morning, Lindau."

Fulkerson squared his feet in front of the bust and
compared it by fleeting glances with the old man as he
got stiffly up and suffered Beaton to help him on with
his thin, shabby overcoat.

" Can you come to-morrow, Lindau ?"

" No, not to-morrow, Mr. Peaton. I haf to zit for
the young ladties."

aOh!" said Beaton. " Wetmore's class? Is Miss
Leighton doing you ?"

" I don't know their naniess," Lindau began, when
Fulkerson said:

" Hope you haven't forgotten mine, Mr. Lindau ?
I met you with Mr. March at Maroni's one night."
Fulkerson offered him a universally shakable hand.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh yes ! I am gladt to zee you again, Mr. Vulker-
son. And Mr. Marge — lie don't zeem to gome any

019

more r

" Up to his eyes in work. Been moving on from
Boston and getting settled, and starting in on our
enterprise. Beaton here hasn't got a very flattering
likeness of you, hey ? Well, good-morning," he said,
for Lindau appeared not to have heard him and was
escaping with a bow through the door.

Beaton lit a cigarette which he pinched nervously
between his lips before he spoke. " You've come for
that letter, I suppose, Fulkerson ? It isn't done."

Fulkerson turned from staring at the bust to which
he had mounted. " What you fretting about that letter
for? I don't want your letter."

Beaton stopped biting his cigarette and looked at
him. " Don't want my letter ? Oh, very good !" he
bristled up. He took his cigarette from his lips, and
blew the smoke through his nostrils, and then looked
at Fulkerson.

" ~No ; I don't want your letter ; I want you"
Beaton disdained to ask an explanation, but he in
ternally lowered his crest, while he continued to look
at Fulkerson without changing his defiant countenance.
This suited Fulkerson well enough, and he went on
with relish, " I'm going out of the syndicate business,
old man, and I'm on a new thing." He put his leg
over the back of a chair and rested his foot on its seat,
and, with one hand in his pocket, he laid the scheme of
Every Other- Week before Beaton with the help of the
other. The artist wrent about the room, meanwhile,
with an effect of indifference which by no means of
fended Fulkerson. He took some water into his mouth
from a tumbler, which he blew in a fine mist over the
head of Judas before swathing it in a dirty cotton

139

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

cloth; he washed his brushes and set his palette; he
put up on his easel the picture he had blocked on the
day before, and stared at it with a gloomy face; then
he gathered the sheets of his unfinished letter together
and slid them into a drawer of his writing-desk. By
the time he had finished and turned again to Fulker
son, Fulkerson was saying : " I did think we could have
the first number out by New- Year's; but it will take
longer than that — a month longer; but I'm not sorry,
for the holidays kill everything; and by February, or
the middle of February, people will get their breath
again and begin to look round and ask what's new.
Then we'll reply in the language of Shakespeare and
Milton, ( Every Other Week; and don't you forget it.' '
He took down his leg and asked, " Got a pipe of 'baccy
anywhere ?"

Beaton nodded at a clay stem sticking out of a
Japanese vase of bronze on his mantel. " There's
yours," he said ; and Fulkerson said, " Thanks," and
filled the pipe and sat down and began to smoke
tranquilly.

Beaton saw that he would have to speak now. " And
what do you want with me ?"

" You ? Oh yes," Fulkerson humorously dramatized
a return to himself from a pensive absence. " Want
you for the art department."

Beaton shook his head. " I'm not your man, Ful
kerson," he said, compassionately. " You want a more
practical hand, one that's in touch with what's going.
I'm getting further and further away from this century
and its claptrap. I don't believe in your enterprise;
I don't respect it, and I won't have anything to do
with it. It would — choke me, that kind of thing."

" That's all right," said Fulkerson. He esteemed
a man who was not going to let himself go cheap. u Or

140

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

if it isn't, we can make it. You and March will pull
together first-rate. I don't care how much ideal you
put into the thing; the more the better. I can look
after the other end of the schooner myself."

" You don't understand me," said Beaton. " I'm
not trying to get a rise out of you. I'm in earnest.
What you want is some man who can have patience
with mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and
with genius turning mediocrity on his hands. I haven't
any luck with men ; I don't get on with them ; I'm not
popular." Beaton recognized the fact with the satis
faction which it somehow always brings to human pride.

" So much the better !" Fulkerson was ready for
him at this point. " I don't want you to work the old-
established racket — the reputations. When I want
them I'll go to them with a pocketful of rocks —
knock-down argument. But my idea is to deal with
the volunteer material. Look at the way the period
icals are carried on now! Names! names! names!
In a country that's just boiling over with literary and
artistic ability of every kind the new fellows have no
chance. The editors all engage their material. I don't
believe there are fifty volunteer contributions printed
in a year in all the New York magazines. It's all
wrong; it's suicidal. Every Other Week is going back
to the good old anonymous system, the only fair sys
tem. It's worked well in literature, and it will work
well in art."

" It won't work well in art," said Beaton. " There
you have a totally different set of conditions. What
you'll get by inviting volunteer illustrations will be
a lot of amateur trash. And how are you going to
submit your literature for illustration? It can't be
done. At any rate, 7 won't undertake to do it."

" We'll get up a School of Illustration," said Ful-
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kerson, with cynical security. " You can read the
things and explain 'em, and your pupils can make
their sketches under your eye. They wouldn't be much
further out than most illustrations are if they never
knew what they were illustrating. You might select
from what comes in and make up a sort of pictorial
variations to the literature without any particular
reference to it. Well, I understand you to accept?"

" !XTo, you don't."

' That is, to consent to help us with your advice
and criticism. That's all I want. It won't commit
you to anything; and you can be as anonymous as
anybody." At the door Fulkerson added : " By-the-
way, the new man — the fellow that's taken my old
syndicate business — will want you to keep on; but I
guess he's going to try to beat you down on the price
of the letters. He's going in for retrenchment. I
brought along a check for this one; I'm to pay for
that." He offered Beaton an envelope.

" I can't take it, Fulkerson. The letter's paid for
already." Fulkerson stepped forward and laid the en
velope on the table among the tubes of paint.

" It isn't the letter merely. I thought you wouldn't
object to a little advance on your Every Other Week
work till you kind of got started."

Beaton remained inflexible. " It can't be done, Ful
kerson. Don't I tell you I can't sell myself out to a
thing I don't believe in? Can't you understand that?"

"Oh yes; I can understand that first-rate. I don't
want to buy you ; I want to borrow you. It's all right.
See ? Come round when you can ; I'd like to introduce
you to old March. That's going to be our address."
He put a card on the table beside the envelope, and
Beaton allowed him to go without making him take the
check back. He had remembered his father's plea ;

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that unnerved him, and he promised himself again to
return his father's poor little check and to work on
that picture and give it to Fulkerson for the check
he had left and for his back debts. He resolved to go
to work on the picture at once; he had set his palette
for it ; but first he looked at Fulkerson's check. It was
for only fifty dollars, and the canny Scotch blood in
Beaton rebelled; he could not let this picture go for
any such money; he felt a little like a man whose
generosity has been trifled with. The conflict of emo
tions broke him up, and he could not work.

IV

THE day wasted away in Beaton's hands; at half-
past four o'clock he went out to tea at the house of
a lady who was At Home that afternoon from four
till seven. By this time Beaton was in possession of
one of those other selves of which we each have sev
eral about us, and was again the laconic, staccato, rather
worldlified young artist whose moments of a controlled
utterance and a certain distinction of manner had com
mended him to Mrs. Horn's fancy in the summer at
St. Barnaby.

Mrs. Horn's rooms were large, and they never seemed
very full, though this perhaps was because people were
always so quiet. The ladies, who outnumbered the
men ten to one, as they always do at a New York tea,
were dressed in sympathy with the low tone every one
spoke in, and with the subdued light which gave a
crepuscular uncertainty to the few objects, the dim
pictures, the unexcited upholstery, of the rooms. One
breathed free of bric-a-brac there, and the new-comer
breathed softly as one does on going into church after
service has begun. This might be a suggestion from
the voiceless behavior of the man-servant who let you
in, but it was also because Mrs. Horn's At Home
was a ceremony, a decorum, and not festival. At far
greater houses there was more gayety, at richer houses
there was more freedom ; the suppression at Mrs. Horn's
was a personal, not a social, effect; it was an efflux

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of her character, demure, silentious, vague, but very
correct.

Beaton easily found his way to her around the
grouped skirts and among the detached figures, and
received a pressure of welcome from the hand which
she momentarily relaxed from the tea-pot. She sat
behind a table put crosswise of a remote corner, and
offered tea to people whom a niece of hers received
provisionally or sped finally in the outer room. They
did not usually take tea, and when they did they did
not usually drink it; but Beaton was feverishly glad
of his cup; he took rum and lemon in it, and stood
talking at Mrs. Horn's side till the next arrival should
displace him : he talked in his French manner.

" I have been hoping to see you," she said. " I
wanted to ask you about the Leightons. Did they
really come?"

" I believe so. They are in town — yes. I haven't
seen them."

" Then you don't know how they're getting on —
that pretty creature, with her cleverness, and poor
Mrs. Leighton ? I was afraid they were venturing on
a rash experiment. Do you know where they are ?"

" In West Eleventh Street somewhere. Miss Leigh-
ton is in Mr. Wetmore's class."

" I must look them up. Do you know their num
ber?"

" Not at the moment. I can find out."

" Do," said Mrs. Horn. " What courage they must
have, to plunge into New York as they've done! I
really didn't think they would. I wonder if they've
succeeded in getting anybody into their house yet?"

" I don't know," said Beaton.

" I discouraged their coming all I could," she sighed,
" and I suppose you did, too. But it's quite useless

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trying to make people in a place like St. Barnaby un
derstand how it is in town."

" Yes," said Beaton. He stirred his tea, while in
wardly he tried to believe that he had really dis
couraged the Leightons from coming to New York.
Perhaps the vexation of his failure made him call
Mrs. Horn in his heart a fraud.

" Yes," she went on, " it is very, very hard. And
wrhen they won't understand, and rush on their doom,
you feel that they are going to hold you respons —

Mrs. Horn's eyes wandered from Beaton ; her voice
faltered in the faded interest of her remark, and then
rose with renewed vigor in greeting a lady who came
up and stretched her glove across the tea-cups.

Beaton got himself away and out of the house with
a much briefer adieu to the niece than he had meant to
make. The patronizing compassion of Mrs. Horn for
the Leightons filled him with indignation towrard her,
toward himself. There was no reason why he should
not have ignored them as he had done ; but there was a
feeling. It was his nature to be careless, and he had
been spoiled into recklessness; he neglected everybody,
and only remembered them when it suited his whim
or his convenience; but he fiercely resented the inat
tentions of others toward himself. He had no scruple
about breaking an engagement or failing to keep an
appointment; he made promises without thinking of
their fulfilment, and not because he was a faithless
person, but because he was imaginative, and expected
at the time to do what he said, but was fickle, and so
did not. As most of his shortcomings were of a so
ciety sort, no great harm was done to anybody else.
He had contracted somewhat the circle of his acquaint
ance by what some people called his rudeness, but most
people treated it as his oddity, and were patient with

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it. One lady said she valued his coming when he said
he would come hecause it had the charm of the unex
pected. " Only it shows that it isn't always the un
expected that happens," she explained.

It did not occur to him that his behavior was im
moral; he did not realize that it was creating a reputa
tion if not a character for him. While we are still
young we do not realize that our actions have this
effect. It seems to us that people will judge us from
what we think and feel. Later we find out that this
is impossible ; perhaps we find it out too late ; some of
us never find it out at all.

In spite of his shame about the Leightons, Beaton
had no present intention of looking them up or sending
Mrs. Horn their address. As a matter of fact, he never
did send it ; but he happened to meet Mr. Wetmore and
his wife at the restaurant where he dined, and he got
it of the painter for himself. He did not ask him how
Miss Leighton was getting on; but Wetmore launched
out, with Alma for a tacit text, on the futility of wom
en generally going in for art. " Even when they have
talent they've got too much against them. Where a
girl doesn't seem very strong, like Miss Leighton, no
amount of chic is going to help."

His wife disputed him on behalf of her sex, as
women always do.

" No, Dolly," he persisted ; " she'd better be home
milking the cowrs and leading the horse to water."

" Do you think she'd better be up till two in the
morning at balls and going all day to receptions and
luncheons ?"

" Oh, guess it isn't a question of that, even if she
weren't drawing. You knew them at home," he said
to Beaton.

" Yes."
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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I remember. Her mother said you suggested me.
Well, the girl has some notion of it; there's no doubt
about that. But — she's a woman. The trouble with
these talented girls is that they're all woman. If they
weren't, there wouldn't be much chance for the men,
Beaton. But we've got Providence on our own side
from the start. I'm able to wratch all their inspira
tions with perfect composure. I know just how soon
it's going to end in nervous breakdown. Somebody
ought to marry them all and put them out of their
misery."

" And what will you do with your students who
are married already?" his wife said. She felt that
she had let him go on long enough.

" Oh, they ought to get divorced."

" You ought to be ashamed to take their money if
that's what you think of them."

" My dear, I have a wrife to support."

Beaton intervened with a question. " Do you mean
that Miss Leighton isn't standing it very well ?"

" How do I know ? She isn't the kind that bends ;
she's the kind that breaks."

After a little silence Mrs. Wetmore asked, " Won't
you come home with us, Mr. Beaton?"

" Thank you ; no. I have an engagement."

" I don't see why that should prevent you," said
Wetmore. " But you always were a punctilious cuss.
Well !"

Beaton lingered over his cigar ; but no one else whom
he knew came in, and he yielded to the threefold im
pulse of conscience, of curiosity, of inclination, in go
ing to call at the Leightons'. He asked for the ladies,
and the maid showed him into the parlor, where he
found Mrs. Leighton and Miss Woodburn.

The widow met him with a welcome neatly marked

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by resentment ; she meant him to feel that his not com
ing sooner had been noticed. Miss Woodburn bubbled
and gurgled on, and did what she could to mitigate his
punishment, but she did not feel authorized to stay it,
till Mrs. Leighton, by studied avoidance of her daugh
ter's name, obliged Beaton to ask for her. Then Miss
Woodburn caught up her work, and said, " Ah'll go
and tell her, Mrs. Leighton." At the top of the stairs
she found Alma, and Alma tried to make it seem as if
she had not been standing there. " Mali goodness,
eh aid ! there's the handsomest young man asking for
you down there you evah saw. Ah told you' moth ah
Ah would come up fo' you."

" What— who is it 2"

" Don't you know ? But ho' could you ? He's got
the most beautiful eyes, and he wea's his hai' in a
bang, and he talks English like it was something else,
and his name's Mr. Beaton."

" Did he — ask for me ?" said Alma, with a dreamy
tone. She put her hand on the stairs rail, and a little
shiver ran over her.

" Didn't I tell you ? Of coase he did ! And you
ought to go raght down if you want to save the poo'
fellah's lahfe; you' mothah's just freezin' him to
death."

" SHE is?" cried Alma. " Tchk!" She flew down
stairs, and flitted swiftly into the room, and fluttered
up to Beaton, and gave him a crushing hand-shake.

" How very kind of you to come and see us, Mr.
Beaton! When did you come to New York? Don't
you find it warm here? We've only just lighted the
furnace, but with this mild weather it seems too early.
Mamma does keep it so hot !" She rushed about open
ing doors and shutting registers, and then came back
and sat facing him from the sofa with a mask of
radiant cordiality. " How have you been since we
saw you ?"

" Very well," said Beaton. " I hope you're well,
Miss Leighton ?"

" Oh, perfectly ! I think New York agrees with us
both wonderfully. I never knew such air. And to
think of our not having snow yet! I should think
everybody would want to come here! Why don't you
come, Mr. Beaton?"

Beaton lifted his eyes and looked at her. " I — I
live in New York," he faltered.

" In New York City /" she exclaimed

" Surely, Alma," said her mother, " you remember
Mr. Beaton's telling us he lived in New York."

" But I thought you came from Rochester ; or was
it Syracuse? I always get those places mixed up."

" Probably I told you my father lived at Syracuse.

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I've been in New York ever since I came home from
Paris/' said Beaton, with the confusion of a man who
feels himself played upon by a woman.

" From Paris !" Alina echoed, leaning forward, with
her smiling mask tight on. " Wasn't it Munich where
you studied ?"

" I was at Munich, too. I met Wetmore there."

" Oh, do you know Mr. Wetmore ?"

" Why, Alma," her mother interposed again, " it
was Mr. Beaton who told you of Mr. Wetmore."

" Was it ? Why, yes, to be sure. It was Mrs. Horn
who suggested Mr. Ilcomb. I remember now. I can't
thank you enough for having sent me to Mr. Wetmore,
Mr. Beaton. Isn't he delightful ? Oh yes, I'm a per
fect Wetmorian, I can assure you. The whole class
is the same way."

" I just met him and Mrs. Wetmore at dinner," said
Beaton, attempting the recovery of something that he
had lost through the girl's shining ease and steely
sprightliness. She seemed to him so smooth and hard,
with a repellent elasticity from which he was flung off.
" I hope you're not working too hard, Miss Leighton ?"

" Oh no ! I enjoy every minute of it, and grow
stronger on it. Do I look very much wasted away?"
She looked him full in the face, brilliantly smiling,
and intentionally beautiful.

" N"o," he said, with a slow sadness ; " I never saw
you looking better."

" Poor Mr. Beaton !" she said, in recognition of his
doleful tune. " It seems to be quite a blow."

" Oh no-

" I remember all the good advice you used to give
me about not working too hard, and probably it's that
that's saved my life — that and the house-hunting. Has
mamma told you of our adventures in getting settled?

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Some time we must. It was such fun! And didn't
you think we were fortunate to get such a pretty house ?
You must see both our parlors."

She jumped up, and her mother followed her with
a bewildered look as she ran into the back parlor and
flashed up the gas.

" Come in here, Mr. Beaton. I want to show you
the great feature of the house." She opened the low
windows that gave upon a glazed veranda stretching
across the end of the room. " Just think of this in
iN"ew York! You can't see it very well at night, but
when the southern sun pours in here all the after
noon — "

" Yes, I can imagine it," he said. He glanced up
at the bird-cage hanging from the roof. " I suppose
Gypsy enjoys it."

" You remember Gypsy ?" she said ; and she made a
cooing, kissing little noise up at the bird, who responded
drowsily. " Poor old Gypsum ! Well, he shan't be
disturbed. Yes, it's Gyp's delight, and Colonel Wood-
burn likes to write here in the morning. Think of us
having a real live author in the house! And Miss
Woodburn: I'm so glad youVe seen her! They're
Southern people."

" Yes, that was obvious in her case."

" From her accent ? Isn't it fascinating ? I didn't
believe I could ever endure Southerners, but we're like
one family with the Woodburns. I should think you'd
want to paint Miss Woodburn. Don't you think her
coloring is delicious ? And such a quaint kind of eigh
teenth - century type of beauty ! But she's perfectly
lovely every way, and everything she says is so funny.
The Southerners seem to be such great talkers; better
than we are, don't you think ?"

" I don't know," said Beaton, in pensive discourage-

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merit. lie was sensible of being manipulated, oper
ated, but he was helpless to escape from the performer
or to fathom her motives. His pensiveness passed into
gloom, and Avas degenerating into sulky resentment
when he went away, after several failures to get back
to the old ground he had held in relation to Alma. He
retrieved something of it with Mrs. Leighton; but
Alma glittered upon him to the last with a keen im
penetrable candor, a child - like singleness of glance,
covering unfathomable reserve.

" Well, Alma/' said her mother, when the door had
closed upon him.

" Well, mother." Then, after a moment, she said,
with a rush : " Did you think I was going to let him
suppose we were piqued at his not coming? Did you
suppose I was going to let him patronize us, or think
that we were in the least dependent on his favor or
friendship ?"

Her mother did not attempt to answer her. She
merely said, " I shouldn't think he would come any
more."

" Well, we have got on so far without him ; perhaps
we can live through the rest of the winter."

" I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He was
quite stupefied. I could see that he didn't know what
to make of you."

" He's not required to make anything of me," said
Alma.

" Do you think he really believed you had forgotten
all those things ?"

" Impossible to say, mamma."

" Well, I don't think it was quite right, Alma."

" I'll leave him to you the next time. Miss Wood-
burn said you were freezing him to death when I came

down."

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" That was quite different. But there won't be any
next time, I'm afraid/' sighed Mrs. Leighton.

Beaton went home feeling sure there would not. He
tried to read when he got to his room ; but Alma's looks,
tones, gestures, whirred through and through the woof
of the story like shuttles ; he could not keep them out,
and he fell asleep at last, not because he forgot them,
but because he forgave them. He was able to say to
himself that he had been justly cut off from kindness
which he knew how to value in losing it. He did not
expect ever to right himself in Alma's esteem, but he
hoped some day to let her know that he had understood.
It seemed to him that it would be a good thing if she
should find it out after his death. He imagined her
being touched by it under those circumstances.

VI

IN the morning it seemed to Beaton that he had
done himself injustice. When he uncovered his Judas
and looked at it, he could not helieve that the man
who was capahle of such work deserved the punishment
Miss Leighton had inflicted upon him. He still for
gave her, but in the presence of a thing like that he
could not help respecting himself; he believed that if
she could see it she would be sorry that she had cut
herself off from his acquaintance. He carried this
strain of conviction all through his syndicate letter,
which he now took out of his desk and finished, with
an increasing security of his opinions and a mounting
severity in his judgments. He retaliated upon the gen
eral condition of art among us the pangs of wounded
vanity, which Alma had made him feel, and he folded
up his manuscript and put it in his pocket, almost
healed of his humiliation. He had been able to escape
from its sting so entirely while he was writing that the
notion of making his life more and more literary com
mended itself to him. As it was now evident that the
future was to be one of renunciation, of self-forgetting,
an oblivion tinged with bitterness, he formlessly rea
soned in favor of reconsidering his resolution against
Fulkerson's offer. One must call it reasoning, but it
was rather that swift internal dramatization which
constantly goes on in persons of excitable sensibilities,
and which now seemed to sweep Beaton physically

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along toward the Every Other Week office, and car
ried his mind with lightning celerity on to a time when
he should have given that journal such quality and
authority in matters of art as had never been enjoyed
by any in America before. With the prosperity which
he made attend his work he changed the character of
the enterprise, and with Fulkerson's enthusiastic sup
port he gave the public an art journal of as high grade
as Les Lettres et les Arts,, and very much that sort of
thing. All this involved now the unavailing regret of
Alma Leighton, and now his reconciliation with her:
they were married in Grace Church, because Beaton
had once seen a marriage there, and had intended to
paint a picture of it some time.

Xothing in these fervid fantasies prevented his
responding with due dryness to Fulkerson's cheery
" Hello, old man!" when he found himself in the
building fitted up for the Every Oilier Week office.
Fulkerson's room was back of the smaller one occupied
by the bookkeeper; they had been respectively the re
ception-room and dining-room of the little place in its
dwelling - house days, and they had been simply and
tastefully treated in their transformation into business
purposes. The narrow old trim of the doors and win
dows had been kept, and the quaintly ugly marble
mantels. The architect had said, Better let them stay :
they expressed epoch, if not character.

" Well, have you come round to go to work ? Just
hang up your coat on the floor anywhere," Fulkerson
went on.

" I've come to bring you that letter," said Beaton,
all the more haughtily because he found that Fulker-
son was not alone when he welcomed him in these free
and easy terms. There was a quiet-looking man, rather
stout, and a little above the middle height, with a full,

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close-cropped iron-gray beard, seated beyond the table
where Fulkcrson tilted himself back, with, his knees set
against it; and leaning against the mantel there was a
young man with a singularly gentle face, in which lh<;
look of goodness qualified and transfigured a certain
simplicity. His large blue eyes were somewhat prom
inent; and his rather narrow face was drawn forward
in a nose a little too long perhaps, if it had not been
for the full chin deeply cut below the lip, and jutting
firmly forward.

" Introduce you to Mr. March, our editor, Mr.
Beaton," Fulkerson said, rolling his head in the di
rection of the elder man; and then nodding it toward
the younger, he said, " Mr. Dryfoos, Mr. Beaton."
Beaton shook hands with March, and then with Mr.
Dryfoos, and Fulkerson went on, gayly : " We were
just talking of you, Beaton — well, you know the old
saying. Mr. March, as I told you, is our editor, and
Mr. Dryfoos has charge of the publishing department
— he's the counting - room incarnate, the source of
power, the fountain of corruption, the element that
prevents journalism being the high and holy thing
that it would be if there were no money in it." Mr.
Dryfoos turned his large, mild eyes upon Beaton, and
laughed with the uneasy concession which people make
to a character when they do not quite approve of the
character's language. " What Mr. March and I are
trying to do is to carry on this thing so that there
won't be any money in it — or very little; and we're
planning to give the public a better article for the
price than it's ever had before. Now here's a dummy
we've had made up for Every Other Week, and as we've
decided to adopt it, we would naturally like your opin
ion of it, so's to know what opinion to have of you"
He reached forward and pushed toward Beaton a vol-

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nine a little above the size of the ordinary duodecimo
book; its ivory-white pebbled paper cover was prettily
illustrated with a water - colored design irregularly
washed over the greater part of its surface: quite
across the page at top, and narrowing from right to
left as it descended. In the triangular space left blank
the title of the periodical and the publisher's imprint
were tastefully lettered so as to be partly covered by
the background of color.

" It's like some of those Tariarin books of Daudet's,"
said Beaton, looking at it with more interest than he
suffered to be seen. " But it's a book, not a magazine."
He opened its pages of thick, mellow white paper, with
uncut leaves, the first few pages experimentally printed
in the type intended to be used, and illustrated with
some sketches drawn into and over the text, for the sake
of the effect.

" A Daniel — a Daniel come to judgment ! Sit down,
Dan'el, and take it easy." Fulkerson pushed a chair
toward Beaton, wrho dropped into it. " You're right,
Dan'el; it's a book, to all practical intents and pur
poses. And what we propose to do with the American
public is to give it twenty-four books like this a year
— a complete library — for the absurd sum of six dol
lars. We don't intend to sell 'em — it's no name for
the transaction — but to give 'em. And what we want
to get out of you — beg, borrow, buy, or steal from you
—is an opinion whether we shall make the American
public this princely present in paper covers like this,
or in some sort of flexible boards, so they can set them
on the shelf and say no more about it, 2s"ow, Dan'el,
come to judgment, as our respected friend Shy lock re
marked."

Beaton had got done looking at the dummy, and he
dropped it on the table before Fulkerson, who pushed

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it away, apparently to free himself from partiality.
" I don't know anything about the business side, and
I can't tell about the effect of either style on the sales;
but you'll spoil the whole character of the cover if you
use anything thicker than that thickish paper."

" All right ; very good ; first-rate. The ayes have
it. Paper it is. I don't mind telling you that we had
decided for that paper before you came in. Mr. March
wanted it, because he felt in his bones just the way
you do about it, and Mr. Dryfoos wanted it, because
he's the counting-room incarnate, and it's cheaper; and
I wanted it, because I always like to go with the ma
jority. Now what do you think of that little design
itself?"

" The sketch ?" Beaton pulled the book toward him
again and looked at it again. " Rather decorative.
Drawing's not remarkable. Graceful; rather nice."
He pushed the book awray again, and Fulkerson pulled
it to his side of the table.

" Well, that's a piece of that amateur trash you de
spise so much. I went to a painter I know — by-the-
way, he was guilty of suggesting you for this thing,
but I told him I was ahead of him — and I got him
to submit my idea to one of his class, and that's the
result. Well, now, there ain't anything in this world
that sells a book like a pretty cover, and we're going
to have a pretty cover for Every Other Week every
time. We've cut loose from the old traditional quarto
literary newspaper size, and we've cut loose from the
old two-column big page magazine size ; we're going to
have a duodecimo page, clear black print, and paper
that '11 make your mouth water ; and we're going to
have a fresh illustration for the cover of each number,
and we ain't a-going to give the public any rest at all.
Sometimes we're going to have a delicate little land-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

scape like this, and sometimes we're going to have an
indelicate little figure, or as much so as the law will
allow."

The young man leaning against the mantelpiece
blushed a sort of protest.

March smiled and said, dryly, " Those are the num
bers that Mr. Fulkerson is going to edit himself."

" Exactly. And Mr. Beaton, here, is going to sup
ply the floating females, gracefully airing themselves
against a sunset or something of that kind." Beaton
frowned in embarrassment, while Fulkerson went on,
philosophically : " It's astonishing how you fellows can
keep it up at this stage of the proceedings; you can
paint things that your harshest critic would be ashamed
to describe accurately; you're as free as the theatre.
But that's neither here nor there. What I'm after is
the fact that we're going to have variety in our title-
pages, and we are going to have novelty in the illus
trations of the body of the book. March, here, if he
had his own way, wouldn't have any illustrations
at all."

"Not because I don't like them, Mr. Beaton,"
March interposed, " but because I like them too much.
I find that I look at the pictures in an illustrated
article, but I don't read the article very much, and I
fancy that's the case with most other people. You've
got to doing them so prettily that you take our eyes
off the literature, if you don't take our minds off."

" Like the society beauties on the stage : people go
in for the beauty so much that they don't know
Avhat the play is. But the box-office gets there all the
same, and that's what Mr. Dryfoos wants." "Fulkerson
looked up gayly at Mr. Dryfoos, who smiled de'pre-
catingly.

" It was different," March* went on, " when the illus-

]00

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

trations used to be bad. Then the text had some
chance.'7

" Old legitimate drama days, when ugliness and
genius combined to storm the galleries/' said Ful-
kerson.

'' We can still make them bad enough," said Beaton,
ignoring Fulkerson in his remark to March.

Fulkerson took the reply upon himself. " Well, you
needn't make 'em so bad as the old-style cuts ; but you
can make them unobtrusive, modestly retiring. We've
got hold of a process something like that those French
fellows gave Daudet thirty - five thousand dollars to
write a novel to use with; kind of thing that begins
at one side, or one corner, and spreads in a sort of
dim religious style over the print till you can't tell
which is which. Then woVe got a notion that where
the pictures don't behave quite so sociably, they can
be dropped into the text, like a little casual remark,
don't you know, or a comment that has some connec-'
tion, or maybe none at all, with what's going on in
the story. Something like this." Fulkerson took away
one knee from the table long enough to open the drawer,
and pull from it a book that he shoved toward Beaton.
" That's a Spanish book I happened to see at Bren-
tano's, and I froze to it on account of the pictures. I
guess they're pretty good."

" Do you expect to get such drawings in this coun
try ?" asked Beaton, after a glance at the book. " Such
character — such drama ? You won't."

" Well, I'm not so sure," said Fulkerson, " come to
get our amateurs warmed up to the work. But what
I want is to get the physical effect, so to speak — get
that sized picture into our page, and set the fashion of
it. I shouldn't care if the illustration was sometimes
confined to an initial letter and a tail-piece."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Couldn't be done here. We haven't the touch.
We're good in some things, hut this isn't in our way,"
said Beaton, stubbornly. " I can't think of a man who
could do it ; that is, among those that would."

" Well, think of some woman, then," said Fulker-
son, easily. " I've got a notion that the women could
help us out on this thing, come to get 'em interested.
There ain't anything so popular as female fiction ; why
not try female art ?"

" The females themselves have been supposed to have
been trying it for a good while," March suggested ; and
Mr. Dryfoos laughed nervously; Beaton remained sol
emnly silent.

" Yes, I know," Fulkerson assented. " But I don't
mean that kind exactly. What we want to do is to
work the eiuig Weibliche in this concern. We wrant to
make a magazine that will go for the women's fancy
every time. I don't mean with recipes for cooking
and fashions and personal gossip about authors and
society, but real high - tone literature that will show
women triumphing in all the stories, or else suffering
tremendously. We've got to recognize that women
form three-fourths of the reading public in this coun
try, and go for their tastes and their sensibilities and
their sex-piety along the wrhole line. They do like to
think that women can do things better than men; and
if we can let it leak out and get around in the papers
that the managers of Every Other Week couldn't stir
a peg in the line of the illustrations they wanted till
they got a lot of God-gifted girls to help them, it '11
make the fortune of the thing. See ?"

He looked sunnily round at the other men, and
March said : " You ought to be in charge of a Siamese
white elephant, Fulkerson. It's a disgrace to be con
nected with you."

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

" It seems to me," said Beaton, " that you'd better
get a God-gifted girl for your art editor."

F\ilkerson leaned alertly forward, and touched him
on the shoulder, with a compassionate smile. " My
dear boy, they haven't got the genius of organization.
It takes a very masculine man for that — a man who
combines the most subtle and refined sympathies with
the most forceful purposes and the most ferruginous
will-power. Which his name is Angus Beaton, and
here he sets !"

The others laughed with Fulkerson at his gross bur
lesque of flattery, and Beaton frowned sheepishly. " I
suppose you understand this man's style," he growled
toward March.

" He does, my son," said Fulkerson. " He knows
that I cannot tell a lie." He pulled out his watch,
and then got suddenly upon his feet.

" It's quarter of twelve, and I've got an appoint
ment." Beaton rose too, and Fulkerson put the two
books in his lax hands. " Take these along, Michel
angelo Da \7inci, my friend, and put your multitudi
nous mind on them for about an hour, and let us hear
from you to-morrow. We hang upon your decision."

" There's no deciding to be done," said Beaton.
" You can't combine the two styles. They'd kill each
other."

"A Dan'el, a Dan'el come to judgment! I knew
you could help us out! Take ?em along, and tell us
which will go the furthest with the ewlg Weibliche.
Dryfoos, I want a word with you." He led the way
into the front room, flirting an airy farewell to Beaton

with his hand as he went.
12

VII

MAECH and Beaton remained alone together for a
moment, and March said : " I hope you will think it
worth while to take hold with us, Mr. Beaton. Mr.
Fulkerson puts it in his own way, of course ; but we
really want to make a nice thing of the magazine. "
He had that timidity of the elder in the presence of
the younger man which the younger, preoccupied with
his own timidity in the presence of the elder, cannot
imagine. Besides, March was aware of the gulf that
divided him as a literary man from Beaton as an
artist, and he only ventured to feel his way toward
sympathy with him. " We want to make it good ; we
want to make it high. Fulkerson is right about aim
ing to please the women, but of course he caricatures
the way of going about it.'7

For answer, Beaton flung out, " I can't go in for a
thing I don't understand the plan of."

March took it for granted that he had wounded some
exposed sensibility of Beaton's. He continued still
more deferentially : " Mr. Fulkerson's notion — I must
say the notion is his, evolved from his syndicate experi
ence — is that we shall do best in fiction to confine our
selves to short stories, and make each number complete
in itself. He found that the most successful things
he could furnish his newspapers were short stories;
we Americans are supposed to excel in writing them;
and most people begin with them in fiction; and it's

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mr. Fulkerson's idea to work unknown talent, as lie
says, and so he thinks he can not only get them easily,
but can gradually form a school of short-story writers.
I can't say I follow him altogether, but I respect his
experience. We shall not despise translations of short
stories, but otherwise the matter will all be original,
and, of course, it won't all be short stories. We shall
use sketches of travel, and essays, and little dramatic
studies, and bits of biography and history ; but all very
light, and always short enough to be completed in a
single number. Mr. Fulkerson believes in pictures,
and most of the things would be capable of illus
tration."

" I see," said Beaton.

" I don't know but this is the whole affair," said
March, beginning to stiffen a little at the young man's
reticence.

" I understand. Thank you for taking the trouble
to explain. Good-morning." Beaton bowed himself
off, without offering to shake hands.

Fulkerson came in after a while from the outer of
fice, and Mr. Dryfoos followed him. " Well, what do
you think of our art editor ?"

" Is he our art editor 2" asked March. " I wasn't
quite certain when he left."

" Did he take the books ?"

" Yes, he took the books."

" I guess he's all right, then." Fulkerson added,
in concession to the umbrage he detected in March:
" Beaton has his times of being the greatest ass in the
solar system, but he usually takes it out in personal
conduct. When it comes to work, he's a regular horse."

" He appears to have compromised for the present
by being a perfect mule," said March.

"Well, he's in a transition state," Fulkerson al-
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A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

lowed. " He's the man for us. He really understands
what we want. You'll see ; he'll catch on. That lurid
glare of his will wear off in the course of time. He's
really a good fellow when you take him off his guard ;
and he's full of ideas. He's spread out over a good
deal of ground at present, and so he's pretty thin ; but
come to gather him up into a lump, there's a good deal
of substance to him. Yes, there is. He's a first-rate
critic, and he's a nice fellow with the other artists.
They laugh at his universality, but they all like him.
He's the best kind of a teacher when he condescends
to it; and he's just the man to deal with our volunteer
work. Yes, sir, he's a prize. Well, I must go now."

Fulkerson went out of the street door, and then came
quickly back. " By-the-bye, March, I saw that old dyna
miter of yours round at Beaton's room yesterday."

" What old dynamiter of mine ?"

" That old one-handed Dutchman — friend of your
youth — the one we saw at Maroni's —

" Oh — Lindau !" said March, with a vague pang of
self - reproach for having thought of Lindau so little
after the first flood of his tender feeling toward him
was past.

" Yes, our versatile friend was modelling him as
Judas Iscariot. Lindau makes a first-rate Judas, and
Beaton has got a big thing in that head if he works
the religious people right. But what I wras thinking
of was this — it struck me just as I was going out of
the door : Didn't you tell me Lindau knew forty or fifty
different languages ?"

" Four or five, yes."

" Well, we won't quarrel about the number. The
question is, Why not work him in the field of foreign
literature? You can't go over all their reviews and
magazines, and he could do the smelling for you, if

1G6

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

you could trust his nose. Would lie know a good
thing?"

" I think he would," said March, on whom the scope
of Fulkerson's suggestion gradually opened. " He used
to have good taste, and he must know the ground. Why,
it's a capital idea, Fulkerson ! Lindau wrote very fair
English, and he could translate, with a little revision."

" And he would probably work cheap. Well, hadn't
you better see him about it? I guess it '11 be quite a
windfall for him."

" Yes, it will. I'll look him up. Thank you for
the suggestion, Fulkerson."

"Oh, don't mention it! I don't mind doing Every
Other Week a good turn now and then when it conies
in my way." Fulkerson went out again, and this time
March was finally left with Mr. Dryfoos.

" Mrs. March was very sorry not to be at home when
your sisters called the other day. She wished me to
ask if they had any afternoon in particular. There
was none on your mother's card."

" No, sir," said the young man, with a flush of em
barrassment that seemed habitual with him. " She
has no day. She's at home almost every day. She
hardly ever goes out."

" Might we come some evening ?" March asked. '' We
should be very glad to do that, if she would excuse the
informality. Then I could come with Mrs. March."

" Mother isn't very formal," said the young man.
" She would be very glad to see you."

" Then we'll come some night this week, if you will
let us. When do you expect your father back ?"

" Not much before Christmas. He's trying to settle
up some things at Moffitt."

" And what do you think of our art editor ?" asked

March, with a smile, for the change of subject.

1G7

A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, I don't know much about such things," said
the young man, with another of his embarrassed flushes.
" Mr. Fulkerson seems to feel sure that he is the one
for us."

" Mr. Fulkerson seemed to think that / was the one
for you, too," said March ; and he laughed. " That's
what makes me doubt his infallibility. But he couldn't
do worse with Mr. Beaton."

Mr. Dryfoos reddened and looked down, as if unable
or unwilling to cope with the difficulty of making a
polite protest against March's self-depreciation. He
said, after a moment : " It's new business to all of us
except Mr. Fulkerson. But I think it will succeed. I
think we can do some good in it."

March asked rather absently, " Some good ?" Then
he added : " Oh yes ; I think we can. What do you
mean by good ? Improve the public taste ? Elevate
the standard of literature ? Give young authors and
artists a chance?"

This was the only good that had ever been in March's
mind, except the good that was to come in a material
way from his success, to himself and to his family.

" I don't know," said the young man ; and he looked
down in a shamefaced fashion. He lifted his head
and looked into March's face. " I suppose I was think
ing that some time we might help along. If we were
to have those sketches of yours about life in every part
of New York-
March's authorial vanity was tickled. " Fulkerson
has been talking to you about them? He seemed to
think they would be a card. He believes that there's
no subject so fascinating to the general average of peo
ple throughout the country as life in New York City;
and he liked my notion of doing these things." March
hoped that Dryfoos would answer that Fulkerson was

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

perfectly enthusiastic about his notion ; but lie did not
need this stimulus, and, at any rate, he went on without
it. " The fact is, it's something that struck my fancy
the moment I came here; I found myself intensely
interested in the place, and I began to make notes, con
sciously and unconsciously, at once. Yes, I believe I
can get something quite attractive out of it. I don't in-
the least know what it will be yet, except that it will
be very desultory ; and I couldn't at all say Avhen I can
get at it. If we postpone the first number till February
I might get a little paper into that. Yes, I think it
might be a good thing for us," March said, with mod
est self-appreciation.

" If you can make the comfortable people under
stand how the uncomfortable people live, it will be
a very good thing, Mr. March. Sometimes it seems
to me that the only trouble is that we don't know one
another well enough; and that the first thing is to do
this." The young fellow spoke with the seriousness in
which the beauty of his face resided. Whenever he
laughed his face looked weak, even silly. It seemed
to be a sense of this that made him hang his head or
turn it away at such times.

" That's true," said March, from the surface only.
" And then, those phases of low life are immensely
picturesque. Of course, we must try to get the con
trasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect. That
won't be so easy. You can't penetrate to the dinner
party of a millionaire under the wing of a detective
as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street, or to
his children's nursery with a philanthropist as you can
to a street-boy's lodging-house." March laughed, and
again the young man turned his head away. " Still,
something can be done in that way by tact and pa
tience."

169

VIII

THAT evening March went with his wife to return
the call of the Dryfoos ladies. On their way up-town
in the Elevated he told her of his talk with young
Dryfoos. " I confess I was a little ashamed before
him afterward for having looked at the matter so en
tirely from the esthetic point of view. But of course,
you know, if I went to work at those things with an
ethical intention explicitly in mind, I should spoil
them."

" Of course," said his wife. She had always heard
him say something of this kind ahout such things.

He went on : " But I suppose that's just the point
that such a nature as young Dryfoos's can't get hold
of, or keep hold of. We're a queer lot, down there,
Isabel — perfect menagerie. If it hadn't been that Ful-
kerson got us together, and really seems to know what
he did it for, I should say he was the oddest stick
among us. But when I think of myself and my own
crankiness for the literary department ; and young Dry
foos, who ought really to be in the pulpit, or a mon
astery, or something, for publisher; and that young
Beaton, who probably hasn't a moral fibre in his com
position, for the art man, I don't know but we could
give Fulkerson odds and still beat him in oddity."

His wife heaved a deep sigh of apprehension, of
renunciation, of monition. " Well, Fm glad you can
feel so light about it, Basil."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Light ? I feel gay ! With Fulkerson at the helm,
I tell you the rocks and the lee shore had better keep
out of the way." He laughed with pleasure in his
metaphor. " Just when you think Fulkerson has taken
leave of his senses he says or does something that shows
he is on the most intimate and inalienable terms with
them all the time. You know how I've been worrying
over those foreign periodicals, and trying to get some
translations from them for the first number? Well,
Fulkerson has brought his centipedal mind to bear on
the subject, and he's suggested that old German friend
of mine I was telling you of — the one I met in the
restaurant — the friend of my youth."

" Do you think he could do it ?" asked Mrs. March,
sceptically.

" He's a perfect Babel of strange tongues ; and he's
the very man for the work, and I was ashamed I hadn't
thought of him myself, for I suspect he needs the
work."

" Well, be careful how you get mixed up with him,
then, Basil," said his wife, who had the natural mis
giving concerning the friends of her husband's youth
that all wives have. " You know the Germans are so
unscrupulously dependent. You don't know anything
about him now."

" I'm not afraid of Lindau," said March. " He was
the best and kindest man I ever saw, the most high-
minded, the most generous. He lost a hand in the war
that helped to save us and keep us possible, and that
stump of his is character enough for me."

" Oh, you don't think I could have meant anything
against him !" said Mrs. March, with the tender fervor
that every woman who lived in the time of the war
must feel for those who suffered in it. " All that I
meant was that I hoped you would not get mixed up

171

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with him too much. You're so apt to be carried away
by your impulses."

" They didn't carry me very far away in the direc
tion of poor old Lindau, I'm ashamed to think/' said
March. " I meant all sorts of fine things by him after
I met him; and then I forgot him, and I had to be
reminded of him by Fulkerson."

She did not answer him, and he fell into a remorse
ful reverie, in which he rehabilitated Lindau anew,
and provided handsomely for his old age. He got him
buried with military honors, and had a shaft raised
over him, with a medallion likeness by Beaton and an
epitaph by himself, by the time they reached Forty-
second Street ; there was no time to write Lindau's life,
however briefly, before the train stopped.

They had to walk up four blocks and then half a
block across before they came to the indistinctive
brownstone house wrhere the Dryfooses lived. It was
larger than some in the same block, but the next neigh
borhood of a huge apartment-house dwarfed it again.
March thought he recognized the very flat in which he
had disciplined the surly janitor, but he did not tell
his wife; he made her notice the transition character
of the street, which had been mostly built up in apart
ment-houses, with here and there a single dwelling
dropped far down beneath and beside them, to that
jag-toothed effect on the sky-line so often observable
in such New York streets. " I don't know exactly what
the old gentleman bought here for," he said, as they
waited on the steps after ringing, " unless he expects
to turn it into flats by-and-by. Otherwise, I don't be
lieve he'll get his money back."

An Irish serving-man, with a certain surprise that
delayed him, said the ladies were at home, and let the
Marches in, and then carried their cards up-stairs. The

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A IIAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

drawing-room, where he said they could sit down while
he went on this errand, was delicately decorated in
white and gold, and furnished with a sort of extravagant
good taste; there was nothing to object to in the satin
furniture, the pale, soft, rich carpet, the pictures, and
the bronze and china bric-a-brac, except that their cost
liness was too evident; everything in the room meant
money too plainly, and too much of it. The Marches
recognized this in the hoarse whispers which people
cannot get their voices above when they try to talk
away the interval of waiting in such circumstances;
they conjectured from what they had heard of the Dry-
fooses that this tasteful luxury in no wise expressed
their civilization. " Though when you come to that,"
said March, " I don't know that Mrs. Green's gim-
crackery expresses ours."

" Well, Basil, I didn't take the gimcrackery. That
was your —

The rustle of skirts on the stairs without arrested
Mrs. March in the well-merited punishment which she
never failed to inflict upon her husband when the ques
tion of the gimcrackery — they always called it that —
came up. She rose at the entrance of a bright-looking,
pretty-looking, mature, youngish lady, in black silk of
a neutral implication, who put out her hand to her,
and said, with a very cheery, very ladylike accent,
" Mrs. March ?" and then added to both of them, while
she shook hands with March, and before they could get
the name out of their mouths : " No, not Miss Dryfoos !
Neither of them ; nor Mrs. Dryfoos. Mrs. Mandel.
The ladies will be down in a moment. Won't you
throw off your sacque, Mrs. March \ I'm afraid it's
rather warm here, coming from the outside."

" I will throw it back, if you'll allow me," said
Mrs. March, with a sort of provisionally, as if, pend-

173

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ing some uncertainty as to Mrs. Mandel's quality and
authority, she did not feel herself justified in going
further.

But if she did not know about Mrs. Man del, Mrs.
Mandel seemed to know about her. " Oh, well, do !"
she said, with a sort of recognition of the propriety of
her caution. " I hope you are feeling a little at home
in New York. We heard so much of your trouble in
getting a flat, from Mr. Fulkerson."

" Well, a true Bostonian doesn't give up quite so
soon," said Mrs. March. " But I will say New York
doesn't seem so far away, now we're here."

" I'm sure you'll like it. Every one does." Mrs.
Mandel added to March, " It's very sharp out, isn't it ?"

" Rather sharp. But after our Boston winters I
don't know but I ought to repudiate the word."

" Ah, wait till you have been here through March !"
said Mrs. Mandel. She began with him, but skilfully
transferred the close of her remark, and the little smile
of menace that went with it, to his wife.

" Yes," said Mrs. March, " or April, either. Talk
about our east winds !"

" Oh, I'm sure they can't be worse than our winds,"
Mrs. Mandel returned, caressingly.

" If we escape N"ew York pneumonia," March
laughed, " it will only be to fall a prey to New York
malaria as soon as the frost is out of the ground."

" Oh, but you kno\y," said Mrs. Mandel, " I think
our malaria has really been slandered a little. It's
more a matter of drainage — of plumbing. I don't be
lieve it would be possible for malaria to get into this
house, we've had it gone over so thoroughly."

Mrs. March said, while she tried to divine Mrs.
Mandel's position from this statement, " It's certainly
the first duty."

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A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

" If Mrs. March could have had her way, we should
have had the drainage of our whole ward put in order,"
said her husband, " before we ventured to take a fur
nished apartment for the winter."

Mrs. Mandel looked discreetly at Mrs. March for
permission to laugh at this, but at the same moment
both ladies became preoccupied with a second rustling
on the stairs.

Two tall, well-dressed young girls came in, and Mrs.
Mandel introduced, " Miss Dryf oos, Mrs. March ; and
Miss Mela Dryf oos, Mr. March," she added, and the
girls shook hands in their several ways with the
Marches.

Miss Dryfoos had keen black eyes, and her hair was
intensely black. Her face, but for the slight inward
curve of the nose, was regular, and the smallness of
her nose and of her mouth did not weaken her face,
but gave it a curious effect of fierceness, of challenge.
She had a large black fan in her hand, which she
waved in talking, with a slow, watchful nervousness.
Her sister was blonde, and had a profile like her
brother's ; but her chin was not so salient, and the weak
look of the mouth was not corrected by the spirituality
or the fervor of his eyes, though hers were of the same
mottled blue. She dropped into the low seat beside
Mrs. Mandel, and intertwined her fingers with those of
the hand which Mrs. Mandel let her have. She smiled
upon the Marches, while Miss Dryfoos watched them
intensely, with her eyes first on one and then on the
other, as if she did not mean to let any expression of
theirs escape her.

" My mother will be down in a minute," she said to
Mrs. March.

" I hope we're not disturbing her. It is so good of

you to let us come in the evening," Mrs. March replied.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, not at all," said the girl. " We receive in the
evening."

" When we do receive," Miss Mela put in. " We
don't always get the chance to." She began a laugh,
which she checked at a smile from Mrs. Mandel, which
no one could have seen to be reproving.

Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan, and looked
up defiantly at Mrs. March. " I suppose you have
hardly got settled. We were afraid we would disturb
you when we called."

" Oh no ! We were very sorry to miss your visit.
We are quite settled in our new quarters. Of course,
it's all very different from Boston."

" I hope it's more of a sociable place there," Miss
Mela broke in again. " I never saw such an unsociable
place as New York. We've been in this house three
months, and I don't believe that if we stayed three
years any of the neighbors would call."

" I fancy proximity doesn't count for much in New
York," March suggested.

Mrs. Mandel said : " That's what I tell Miss Mela.
But she is a very social nature, and can't reconcile
herself to the fact."

"No, I can't," the girl pouted. "I think it was
twice as much fun in Moffitt. I wish I was there
now."

" Yes," said March, " I think there's a great deal
more enjoyment in those smaller places. There's not
so much going on in the way of public amusements,
and so people make more of one another. There are
not so many concerts, theatres, operas — '

" Oh, they've got a splendid opera-house in Moffitt.
It's just grand," said Miss Mela.

" Have you been to the opera here, this winter ?"

Mrs. March asked of the elder girl.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

She was glaring with a frown at her sister, and de
tached her eyes from her with an effort. " What did
yon say?" she demanded, with an absent bluntness.
" Oh yes. Yes ! We went once. Father took a box
at the Metropolitan."

" Then you got a good dose of Wagner, I suppose ?"
said March.

"What?" asked the girl.

" I don't think Miss Dryfoos is very fond of Wag
ner's music," Mrs. Mandel said. " I believe you are
all great Wagnerites in Boston ?"

" I'm a very bad Bostonian, Mrs. Mandel. I sus
pect myself of preferring Verdi," March answered.

Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan again, and
said, " I like ' Trovatore ' the best."

" It's an opera I never get tired of," said March,
and Mrs. March and Mrs. Mandel exchanged a smile
of compassion for his simplicity. He detected it, and
added : " But I dare say I shall come down with the
Wagner fever in time. I've been exposed to some
malignant cases of it."

" That night we were there," said Miss Mela, " they
had to turn the gas down all through one part of it,
and the papers said the ladies were awful mad because
they couldn't show their diamonds. I don't wonder,
if they all had to pay as much for their boxes as we
did. We had to pay sixty dollars." She looked at the
Marches for their sensation at this expense.

March said : " Well, I think I shall take my box by
the month, then. It must come cheaper, wholesale."

" Oh no, it don't," said the girl, glad to inform him.
" The people that own their boxes, and that had to give
fifteen or twenty thousand dollars apiece for them, have
to pay sixty dollars a night whenever there's a per
formance, whether they go or not."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Then I should go every night/7 March said.

" Most of the ladies were low neck —

March interposed, " Well, I shouldn't go low
neck"

The girl broke into a fondly approving laugh at
his drolling. " Oh, I guess you love to train ! Us
girls wanted to go low neck, too; but father said we
shouldn't, and mother said if we did she wouldn't come
to the front of the box once. Well, she didn't, anyway.
We might just as well 'a' gone low neck. She stayed
back the whole time, and when they had that dance —
the ballet, you knowT — she just shut her eyes. Well,
Conrad didn't like that part much, either ; but us girls
and Mrs. Mandel, we brazened it out right in the front
of the box. We were about the only ones there that
went high neck. Conrad had to wear a swallow-tail;
but father hadn't any, and he had to patch out writh a
white cravat. You couldn't see what he had on in the
back o' the box, anyway."

Mrs. March looked at Miss Dryfoos, who was waving
her fan more and more slowly up and down, and who,
when she felt herself looked at, returned Mrs. March's
smile, which she meant to be ingratiating and perhaps
sympathetic, with a flash that made her start, and then
ran her fierce eyes over March's face. " Here comes
mother," she said, with a sort of breathlessness, as if
speaking her thought aloud, and through the open door
the Marches could see the old lady on the stairs.

She paused half-way down, and turning, called up:
" Coonrod ! Coonrod ! You bring my shawl down with
you."

Her daughter Mela called out to her, " 2^ow, mother,
Christine '11 give it to you for not sending Mike."

" Well, I don't know where he is, Mely, child," the
mother answered back. " He ain't never around when

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

lie's wanted, aiid when lie ain't, it seems like a body
couldn't git shet of him, nohow."

" Well, you ought to ring for him !" cried Miss Mela,
enjoying the joke.

Her mother came in with a slow step; her head
shook slightly as she looked about the room, perhaps
from nervousness, perhaps from a touch of palsy. In
either case the fact had a pathos which Mrs. March
confessed in the affection with which 'she took her hard,
dry, large, old hand when she was introduced to her,
and in the sincerity which she put into the hope that
she was well.

" I'm just middling" Mrs. Dryfoos replied. " I
ain't never so well, nowadays. I tell fawther I don't
believe it agrees with me very well here, but he says
I'll git used to it. He's away now, out at Moffitt," she
said to March, and wavered on foot a moment before
she sank into a chair. She was a tall woman, who
had been a beautiful girl, and her gray hair had a
memory of blondeness in it like Lindau's, March noticed.
She wore a simple silk gown, of a Quakerly gray, and
she held a handkerchief folded square, as it had come
from the laundress. Something like the Sabbath quiet
of a little wooden meeting - house in thick Western
woods expressed itself to him from her presence.

" Laws, mother !" said Miss Mela ; " what you got
that old thing on for ? If I'd 'a' known you'd 'a' come
down in that!"

" Coonrod said it was all right, Mely," said her
mother.

Miss Mela explained to the Marches : " Mother was
raised among the 'Dunkards, and she thinks it's wicked
to wear anything but a gray silk even for dress-up."

" You hain't never beared o? the Dunkards, I
reckon," the old woman said to Mrs. March. " Some
13 179

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

folks calls 'em the Beardy Men, because they don't
never shave ; and they wash feet like they do in the
Testament. My uncle was one. He raised me."

" I guess pretty much everybody's a Beardy Man
nowadays, if he ain't a Dunkard!"

Miss Mela looked round for applause of her sally,
but March was saying to his wif e : " It's a Pennsyl
vania German sect, I believe — something like the
Quakers. I used to see them when I was a boy."

" Aren't they something like the Mennists ?" asked
Mrs. Mandel.

" They're good people," said the old woman, " and
the world 'd be a heap better off if there was more
like 'em."

Her son came in and laid a soft shawl over her
shoulders before he shook hands with the visitors.
" I am glad you found your way here," he said to
them.

Christine, who had been bending forward over her
fan, now lifted herself up with a sigh and leaned back
in her chair.

" I'm sorry my father isn't here," said the young
man to Mrs. March. " He's never met you yet ?"

"No; and I should like to see him. We hear a
great deal about your father, you know, from Mr.
Fulkerson."

" Oh, I hope you don't believe everything Mr. Ful
kerson says about people," Mela cried. " He's the
greatest person for carrying on when he gets going I
ever saw. It makes Christine just as mad when him
and mother gets to talking about religion ; she says she
knows he don't care anything more about it than the
man in the moon. I reckon he don't try it on much
with father."

" Your fawther ain't ever been a perfessor," her
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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

mother interposed ; " but he's always been a good
church-goin' man."

" Not since we come to New York/' retorted the
girl.

" He's been all broke up since he come to New
York," said the old woman, with an aggrieved look.

Mrs. Mandel attempted a diversion. " Have you
heard any of our great New York preachers yet, Mrs.
March ?"

"No, I haven't," Mrs. March admitted; and she
tried to imply by her candid tone that she intended
to begin hearing them the very next Sunday.

" There are a great many things here," said Conrad,
" to take your thoughts off the preaching that you hear
in most of the churches. I think the city itself is
preaching the best sermon all the time."

" I don't know that I understand you," said
March.

Mela answered for him. " Oh, Conrad has got a
lot of notions that nobody can understand. You ought
to see the church he goes to when he does go. I'd about
as lief go to a Catholic church myself; I don't see a
bit o' difference. He's the greatest crony with one of
their preachers; he dresses just like a priest, and he
says he is a priest." She laughed for enjoyment of
the fact, and her brother cast down his eyes.

Mrs. March, in her turn, tried to take from it the
personal tone which the talk was always assuming.
" Have you been to the fall exhibition ?" she asked
Christine ; and the girl drew herself up out of the
abstraction she seemed sunk in.

" The exhibition «" She looked at Mrs. Mandel.

" The pictures of the Academy, you know," Mrs.
Mandel explained. " Where I wanted you to go the

day you had your dress tried on."

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No ; we haven't been yet. Is it good ?" She had
turned to Mrs. March again.

" I believe the fall exhibitions are never so good as
the spring ones. But there are some good pictures.77

" I don't believe I care much about pictures/' said
Christine. " I don't understand them."

" Ah, that's no excuse for not caring about them,"
said March, lightly. " The painters themselves don't,
half the time."

The girl looked at him with that glance at once
defiant and appealing, insolent and anxious, which he
had noticed before, especially when she stole it toward
himself and his wife during her sister's babble. In
the light of Fulkerson's history of the family, its origin
and its ambition, he interpreted it to mean a sense of
her sister's folly and an ignorant will to override his
opinion of anything incongruous in themselves and
their surroundings. He said to himself that she was
deathly proud — too proud to try to palliate anything,
but capable of anything that would put others under
her feet. Her eyes seemed hopelessly to question his
wife's social quality, and he fancied, with not unkindly
interest, the inexperienced girl's doubt whether to treat
them with much or little respect. He lost himself in
fancies about her and her ideals, necessarily sordid, of
her possibilities of suffering, of the triumphs and dis
appointments before her. Her sister would accept both
with a lightness that would keep no trace of either;
but in her they would sink lastingly deep. He came out
of his reverie to find Mrs. Dryfoos saying to him, in
her hoarse voice :

" I think it's a shame, some of the pictur's a body
sees in the winders. They say there's a law ag'inst
them things; and if there is, I don't understand why
the police don't take up them that paints 'em. I hear

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A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

tell, since I been here, that there's women that goes to
have pictur's took from them that way by men paint
ers." The point seemed aimed at March, as if he were
personally responsible for the scandal, and it fell with
a silencing effect for the moment. Nobody seemed
willing to take it up, and Mrs. Dryfoos went on, with
an old woman's severity : " I say they ought to be all
tarred and feathered and rode on a rail. They'd be
drummed out of town in Moffitt."

Miss Mela said, with a crowing laugh : " I should
think they would ! And they wouldn't anybody go low
neck to the opera-house there, either — not low neck the
way they do here, anyway."

" And that pack of worthless hussies," her mother
resumed, " that come out on the stage, and begun to
kick—"

" Laws, mother !" the girl shouted, " I thought you
said you had your eyes shut !"

All but these two simpler creatures were abashed
at the indecorum of suggesting in words the common
places of the theatre and of art.

" Well, I did, Mely, as soon as I could believe my
eyes. I don't know what they're doin' in all their
churches, to let such things go on," said the old woman.
" It's a sin and a shame, I think. Don't you, Coon-
rod?"

A ring at the door cut short whatever answer he
was about to deliver.

" If it's going to be company, Coonrod," said his
mother, making an effort to rise, " I reckon I better
go up-stairs."

" It's Mr. Fulkerson, I guess," said Conrad. " He
thought he might come " ; and at the mention of this
light spirit Mrs. Dryfoos sank contentedly back in her
chair, and a relaxation of their painful tension seemed

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

to pass through the whole company. Conrad went to
the door himself (the serving-man tentatively appeared
some minutes later) and let in Fulkerson's cheerful
voice before his cheerful person.

" Ah, how d'ye do, Conrad ? Brought our friend,
Mr. Beaton, with me," those within heard him say;
and then, after a sound of putting off overcoats, they
saw him fill the doorway, with his feet set square and
his arms akimbo.

IX

" An ! hello ! hello !" Fulkerson said, in recognition
of the Marches. " Regular gathering of the clans.
How are you, Mrs. Dryfoos ? How do you do, Mrs.
Mandel, Miss Christine, Mela, Aunt Hitty, and all
the folks ? How you wuz 2" He shook hands gayly
all round, and took a chair next the old lady, whose
hand he kept in his own, and left Conrad to introduce
Beaton. But he would not let the shadow of Beaton's
solemnity fall upon the company. He began to joke
with Mrs. Dryfoos, and to match rheumatisms with
her, and he included all the ladies in the range of
appropriate pleasantries. " I've brought Mr. Beaton
along to-night, and I want you to make him feel at
home, like you do me, Mrs. Dryfoos. He hasn't got
any rheumatism to speak of; but his parents live in
Syracuse, and he's a kind of an orphan, and we've
just adopted him down at the office. When you going
to bring the young ladies down there, Mrs. Mandel,
for a champagne lunch ? I will have some hydro-
Mela, and Christine it, heigh? How's that for a little
starter ? We dropped in at your place a moment, Mrs.
March, and gave the young folks a few pointers about
their studies. My goodness ! it does me good to see a
boy like that of yours; business, from the word go;
and your girl just scoops my youthful affections. She's
a beauty, and I guess she's good, too. Well, well, what

a world it is ! Miss Christine, won't you show Mr.

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

Beaton that seal ring of yours ? He knows about such
things, and I brought him here to see it as much as
anything. It's an intaglio I brought from the other
side," he explained to Mrs. March, " and I guess you'll
like to look at it. Tried to give it to the Dryfoos fam
ily, and when I couldn't, I sold it to 'em. Bound to
see it on Miss Christine's hand somehow! Hold on!
Let him see it where it belongs, first !"

He arrested the girl in the motion she made to take
off the ring, and let her have the pleasure of showing
her hand to the company with the ring on it. Then he
left her to hear the painter's words about it, which
he continued to deliver dissyllabically as he stood with
her under a gas-jet, twisting his elastic figure and bend
ing his head over the ring.

" Well, Mely, child," Fulkerson went on, with an
open travesty of her mother's habitual address, " and
how are you getting along? Mrs. Mandel hold you
up to the proprieties pretty strictly ? Well, that's right.
You know you'd be roaming all over the pasture if she
didn't."

The girl gurgled out her pleasure in his funning,
and everybody took him on his own ground of privi
leged character. He brought them all together in their
friendliness for ' himself, and before the evening was
over he had inspired Mrs. Mandel to have them served
with coffee, and had made both the girls feel that they
had figured brilliantly in society, an<J that two young
men had been devoted to them.

" Oh, I think he's just as lovely as he can live !"
said Mela, as she stood a moment with her sister on
the scene of her triumph, where the others had left
them after the departure of their guests.

" Who ?" asked Christine, deeply. As she glanced
down at her ring, her eyes burned with a softened fire.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

She had allowed Beaton to change it himself from the
finger where she had worn it to the finger on which he
said she ought to wear it. She did not know whether
it was right to let him, but she was glad she had
done it.

" Who ? Mr. Fulkerson, goosie-poosie ! Not that
old stuck-up Mr. Beaton of yours !"

" He is proud," assented Christine, with a throb of
exultation.

Beaton and Fulkerson went to the Elevated station
with the Marches ; but the painter said he was going to
walk home, and Fulkerson let him go alone.

" One way is enough for me," he explained. " When
I walk up, I don't walk down. Bye-bye, my son !" He
began talking about Beaton to the Marches as they
climbed the station stairs together. " That fellow
puzzles me. I don't know anybody that I have such
a desire to kick, and at the same time that I want to
flatter up so much. Affect you that way ?" he asked of
March.

" Well, as far as the kicking goes, yes."

" And how is it with you, Mrs. March ?"

" Oh, I want to flatter him up."

"No; really? Why? — Hold on! I've got the
change."

Fulkerson pushed March away from the ticket-office
window, and made them his guests, with the inex
orable American hospitality, for the ride down-town.
u Three !" he said to the ticket-seller ; and, when he had
walked them before him out on the platform and drop
ped his tickets into the urn, he persisted in his in
quiry, "Why?"

" Why, because you always want to flatter conceited
people, don't you?" Mrs. March answered, with a
laugh.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Do you ? Yes, I guess you do. You think Beaton
is conceited ?"

" Well, slightly, Mr. Fulkerson."

" I guess you're partly right," said Fulkerson, with
a sigh, so unaccountable in its connection that they all
laughed.

" An ideal ( busted ' ?" March suggested.

"No, not that, exactly,7' said Fulkerson. "But I
had a notion maybe Beaton wasn't conceited all the
time."

" Oh !" Mrs. March exulted, " nobody could be so
conceited all the time as Mr. Beaton is most of the
time. He must have moments of the direst modesty,
when he'd be quite flattery-proof."

" Yes, that's what I mean. I guess that's what makes
me want to kick him. He's left compliments on my
hands that no decent man would."

" Oh ! that's tragical," said March.

" Mr. Fulkerson," Mrs. March began, with change
of subject in her voice, " who is Mrs. Mandel ?"

"Who? What do you think of her?" he rejoined.
" I'll tell you about her when we get in the cars. Look
at that thing ! Ain't it beautiful ?"

They leaned over the track and looked up at the
next station, where the train, just starting, throb
bed out the flame - shot steam into the white moon
light.

" The most beautiful thing in New York — the one
always and certainly beautiful thing here," said March ;
and his wife sighed, " Yes, yes." She clung to him,
and remained rapt by the sight till the train drew near,
and then pulled him back in a panic.

" Well, there ain't really much to tell about her,"
Fulkerson resumed when they were seated in the car.
" She's an invention, of mine."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Of yours ?" cried Mrs. March.

" Of course !" exclaimed her husband.
• " Yes — at least in her present capacity. She sent
me a story for the syndicate, back in July some time,
along about the time I first met old Dryfoos here. It
was a little too long for my purpose, and I thought I
could explain better how I wanted it cut in a call than
I could in a letter. She gave a Brooklyn address, and
I went to see her. I found her," said Fulkerson, with
a vague defiance, " a perfect lady. She was living with
an aunt over there ; and she had seen better days, when
she was a girl, and worse ones afterward. I don't
mean to say her husband was a bad fellow; I guess
he was pretty good ; he was her music-teacher ; she met
him in Germany, and they got married there, and got
through her property before they came over here. Well,
she didn't strike me like a person that could make much
headway in literature. Her story was well enough, but
it hadn't much sand in it; kind of — well, academic, you
know. I told her so, and she iinderstood, and cried a
little; but she did the best she could with the thing,
and I took it and syndicated it. She kind of stuck
in my mind, and the first time I went to see the
Dryfooses — they were stopping at a sort of family
hotel then till they could find a house — Fulker
son broke off altogether, and said, " I don't know
as I know just how the Dryfooses struck you, Mrs.
March ?"

" Can't you imagine ?" she answered, with a kindly^
smile.

" Yes ; but I don't believe I could guess how they
would have struck you last summer when I first saw
them. My ! oh my ! there was the native earth for
you. Mely is a pretty wild colt now, but you ought

to have seen her before she was broken to harness.

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

And Christine ? Ever see that black leopard they got
up there in the Central Park? That was Christine.
Well, I saw what they wanted. They all saw it —
nobody is a fool in all directions, and the Dryfooses
are in their right senses a good deal of the time. Well,
to cut a long story short, I got Mrs. Mandel to take 'em
in hand — the old lady as well as the girls. She was a
born lady, and always lived like one till she saw
Mandel ; and that something academic that killed her
for a writer was just the very thing for them. She
knows the world well enough to know just how much
polish they can take on, and she don't try to put on a
bit more. See ?"

" Yes, I can see," said Mrs. March.

" Well, she took hold at once, as ready as a hospital-
trained nurse; and there ain't anything readier on this
planet. She runs the whole concern, socially and eco
nomically, takes all the care of housekeeping off the
old lady's hands, and goes round with the girls. By-
the-bye, I'm going to take my meals at your widow's,
March, and Conrad's going to have his lunch there.
I'm sick of browsing about."

" Mr. March's widow?" said his wife, looking at him
with provisional severity.

" I have no widow, Isabel," he said, " and never
expect to have, till I leave you in the enjoyment of
my life-insurance. I suppose Fulkerson means the
lady with the daughter who wanted to take us to
board."

" Oh yes. How are they getting on, I do wonder ?"
Mrs. March asked of Fulkerson.

" Well, they've got one family to board ; but it's a
small one. I guess they'll pull through. They didn't
want to take any day boarders at first, the widow said;

I guess they have had to come to it."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Poor things !" sighed Mrs. March. " I hope they'll
go back to the country."

'' Well, I don't, know. When you've once tasted New
York — You wouldn't go back to Boston, would you ?"

" Instantly."

Fulkerson laughed out a tolerant incredulity.

BEATON lit his pipe when he found himself in his
room, and sat down before the dull fire in his grate to
think. It struck him there was a dull fire in his heart
a great deal like it, and he worked out a fanciful
analogy with the coals, still alive, and the ashes creep
ing over them, and the dead clay and cinders. He felt
sick of himself, sick of his life and of all his works.
He was angry with Fulkerson for having got him into
that art department of his, for having bought him up ;
and he was bitter at fate because he had been obliged
to use the money to pay some pressing debts, and had
not been able to return the check his father had sent
him. He pitied his poor old father; he ached with
compassion for him ; and he set his teeth and snarled
with contempt through them for his own baseness.
This was the kind of world it was; but he washed
his hands of it. The fault was in human nature,
and he reflected with pride that he had at least not
invented human nature ; he had not sunk so low as that
yet. The notion amused him ; he thought he might get
a Satanic epigram out of it some way. But in the
mean time that girl, that wild animal, she kept visibly,
tangibly before him; if he put out his hand he might
touch hers, he might pass Jiis arm round her waist.
In Paris, in a set he knew there, what an effect she
would be with that look of hers, and that beauty, all

out of drawing! They would recognize the flame

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

quality in her. He imagined a joke about her be
ing a fiery spirit, or- nymph, naiad, whatever, from
one of her native gas-wells. He began to sketch on
a bit of paper from the table at his elbow vague lines
that veiled and revealed a level, dismal landscape, and
a vast flame against an empty sky, and a shape out of
the flame that took on a likeness and floated detached
from it. The sketch ran up the left side of the sheet
and stretched across it. Beaton laughed out. Pretty
good to let Fulkerson have that for the cover of his
first number ! In black and red it would be effective ;
it would catch the eye from the news-stands. He made
a motion to throw it on the fire, but held it back and
slid it into the table-drawer, and smoked on. He saw
the dummy with the other sketch in the open drawer
which he had brought away from Fulkerson's in the
morning and slipped in there, and he took it out and
looked at it. He made some criticisms in line with
his pencil on it, correcting the drawing here and there,
and then he respected it a little more, though he still
smiled at the feminine quality — a young lady quality.
In spite of his experience the night he called upon
the Leightons, Beaton could not believe that Alma no
longer cared for him. She played at having forgotten
him admirably, but he knew that a few months before
she had been very mindful of him. He knew he had
neglected them since they came to New York, where he
had led them to expect interest, if not attention ; but
he was used to neglecting people, and he was some
what less used to being punished for it — punished and
forgiven. He felt that Alma had punished him so
thoroughly that she ought to have been satisfied with
her work and to have forgiven him in her heart after
ward. He bore no resentment after the first tingling

moments were past; he rather admired her for it; and

193

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

he would have been ready to go back half an hour later
and accept pardon and be on the footing of last sum
mer again. Even now he debated with himself whether
it was too late to call ; but, decidedly, a quarter to ten
seemed late. The next day he determined never to
call upon the Leightons again; but he had no reason
for this; it merely came into a transitory scheme of
conduct, of retirement from the society of women al
together; and after dinner he went round to see them.

He asked for the ladies, and they all three received
him, Alma not without a surprise that intimated itself
to him, and her mother with no appreciable relent
ing; Miss Woodburn, with the needlework which she
found easier to be voluble over than a book, expressed
in her welcome a neutrality both cordial to Beaton and
loyal to Alma.

" Is it snowing outdo's ?" she asked, briskly, after
the greetings were transacted. " Mali goodness !" she
said, in answer to his apparent surprise at the ques
tion. " Ah mahght as well have stayed in the Soath,
for all the winter Ah have seen in New York yet."

" We don't often have snow much before New-
Year's," said Beaton.

" Miss Woodburn is wild for a real Northern win
ter," Mrs. Leighton explained.

" The othah naght Ah woke up and looked oat of
the window and saw all the roofs covered with snow,
and it turned oat to be nothing but moonlaght. Ah was
never so disappointed in mail lahfe," said Miss Wood-
burn.

" If you'll come to St. Barnaby next summer, you
shall have all the winter you want," said Alma.

" I can't let you slander St. Barnaby in that way,"
said Beaton, with the air of wishing to be understood

as meaning more than he said.

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A HAZARD 01* NEW FORTUNES

"Yes?" returned Alma, coolly. "I didn't know
you were so fond of the climate."

" I never think of it as a climate. It's a landscape.
It doesn't matter whether it's hot or cold."

" With the thermometer twenty below, you'd find
that it mattered," Alma persisted.

" Is that the way you feel about St. Barnaby, too,
Mrs. Leighton ?" Beaton asked, with affected desolation.

" I shall be glad enough to go back in the summer,"
Mrs. Leighton conceded.

" And I should be glad to go now," said Beaton,
looking at Alma. He had the dummy of Every Other
Week in his hand, and he saw Alma's eyes wondering
toward it whenever he glanced at her. " I should be
glad to go anywhere to get out of a job I've under
taken," he continued, to Mrs. Leighton. " They're go
ing to start some sort of a new illustrated magazine,
and they've got me in for their art department. I'm
not fit for it; I'd like to run away. Don't you want
to advise me a little, Mrs. Leighton ? You know how
much I value your taste, and I'd like to have you look
at the design for the cover of the first number: they're
going to have a different one for every number. I
don't know whether you'll agree with me, but I think
this is rather nice."

He faced the dummy round, and then laid it on the
table before Mrs. Leighton, pushing some of her work
aside to make room for it and standing over her while
she bent forward to look at it.

Alma kept her place, away from the table.

" Mah goodness! Ho' exciting!" said Miss Wood-
burn. " May anybody look ?"

" Everybody," said Beaton.

" Well, isn't it perfectly choming !" Miss Wood-
burn exclaimed. " Come and look at this, Miss
14 195

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Leighton," she called to Alma, who reluctantly ap
proached.

" What lines are these ?" Mrs. Leighton asked, point
ing to Beaton's pencil scratches.

" They're suggestions of modifications/' he replied.

" I don't think they improve it much. .What do you
think, Alma «"

" Oh, I don't know," said the girl, constraining her
voice to an effect of indifference and glancing carelessly
down at the sketch. " The design might be improved ;
but I don't think those suggestions would do it."

" They're mine," said Beaton, fixing his eves upon
her with a beautiful sad dreaminess that he knew he
could put into them; he spoke with a dreamy remote
ness of tone — his wind-harp stop, Wetmore called it.

" I supposed so," said Alma, calmly.

" Oh, mah goodness !" cried Miss Woodburn. " Is
that the way you awtusts talk to each othah ? Well,
Ah'm glad Ah'm not an awtust — unless I could do all
the talking."

" Artists cannot tell a fib," Alma said, " or even act
one," and she laughed in Beaton's upturned face.

He did not unbend his dreamy gaze. " You're quite
right. The suggestions are stupid."

Alma tiirned to Miss Woodburn : " You hear ? Even
when we speak of our own work."

" Ah nevah hoad anything lahke it !"

" And the design itself ?" Beaton persisted.

" Oh, I'm not an art editor," Alma answered, with
a laugh of exultant evasion.

A tall, dark, grave - looking man of fifty, with a
swarthy face and iron - gray mustache and imperial
and goatee, entered the room. Beaton knew the type;
he had been through Virginia sketching for one of the

illustrated papers, and he had seen such men in Rich-

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A 1IAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

inond. Miss Woodburn hardly needed to say, " May
Ah introduce you to inali fathaw, Co'iiel Woodburn,
Mr. Beaton?"

The men shook hands, and Colonel Woodburn said,
in that soft, gentle, slow Southern voice without our
Northern contractions : " I am very glad to meet you,
sir; happy to make yo' acquaintance. Do not move,
madam," he said to Mrs. Leighton, who made a depre
catory motion to let him pass to the chair beyond her;
" I can find my way." He bowed a bulk that did not
lend itself readily to the devotion, and picked up the
ball of yarn she had let drop out of her lap in half
rising. " Yo' worsteds, madam."

" Yarn, yarn, Colonel Woodburn !" Alma shouted.
" You're quite incorrigible. A spade is a spade !"

" But sometimes it is a trump, my dear young lady,"
said the Colonel, with unabated gallantry ; " and when
yo' mothah uses yarn, it is worsteds. But I respect
worsteds even under the name of yarn : our ladies — my
own mothah and sistahs — had to knit the socks we wore
— all we could get — in the woe."

" Yes, and aftah the \voe," his daughter put in.
" The knitting has not stopped yet in some places.
Have you been much in the Soath, Mr. Beaton ?"

Beaton explained just how much.

" Well, sir," said the Colonel, " then you have seen a
country making gigantic struggles to retrieve its losses,
sir. The South is advancing with enormous strides, sir."

" Too fast for some of us to keep up," said Miss
Woodburn, in an audible aside. " The pace in Char-
lottesboag is pofectly killing, and we had to drop oat
into a slow place like New York."

" The progress in the South is material now," said
the Colonel ; " and those of us whose interests are in
another direction find ourselves — isolated — isolated,

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

sir. The intellectual centres are still in the No'th, sir ;
the great cities draw the mental activity of the country
to them, sir. Necessarily New York is the metropolis."

" Oh, everything comes here," said Beaton, impatient
of the elder's ponderosity. Another sort of man would
have sympathized with the Southerner's willingness to
talk of himself, and led him on to speak of his plans
and ideals. But the sort of man that Beaton was
could not do this ; he put up the dummy into the wrap
per he had let drop on the floor beside him, and tied
it round with string while Colonel Woodburn was talk
ing. He got to his feet with the words he spoke and
offered Mrs. Leighton his hand.

" Must you go ?" she asked, in surprise.

" I am on my way to a reception," he said. She
had noticed that he was in evening dress; and now
she felt the vague hurt that people invited nowhere feel
in the presence of those who are going somewhere. She
did not feel it for herself, but for her daughter; and
she knew Alma would not have let her feel it if she
could have prevented it. But Alma had left the room
for a moment, and she tacitly indulged this sense of
injury in her behalf.

" Please say good - night to Miss Leighton for me,"
Beaton continued. He bowed to Miss Woodburn,
" Good-night, Miss Woodburn," and to her father,
bluntly, " Good-night."

" Good-night, sir," said the Colonel, with a sort of
severe suavity.

" Oh, isn't he choming !" Miss Woodburn whis
pered to Mrs. Leighton when Beaton left the room.

Alma spoke to him in the hall without. " You
knew that was my design, Mr. Beaton. Why did you
bring it ?"

" Why ?" He looked at her in gloomy hesitation.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Then he said : " You know why. I wished to talk it
over with you, to serve you, please you, get back your
good opinion. But I've done neither the one nor the
other ; I've made a mess of the whole thing."

Alma interrupted him. " Has it been accepted ?"

" It will be accepted, if you will let it."

aLet it?" she laughed. "I shall be delighted."
She saw him swayed a little toward her. " It's a
matter of business, isn't it ?"

" Purely. Good-night."

When Alma returned to the room, Colonel Wood-
burn was saying to Mrs. Leighton : " I do not contend
that it is impossible, madam, but it is very difficult
in a thoroughly commercialized society, like yours, to
have the feelings of a gentleman. How can a business
man, whose prosperity, whose earthly salvation, neces
sarily lies in the adversity of some one else, be delicate
and chivalrous, or even honest? If we could have had
time to perfect our system at the South, to eliminate
what was evil and develop what was good in it, we
should have had a perfect system. But the virus of
commercialism was in us, too; it forbade us to make
the best of a divine institution, and tempted us to make
the worst. Now the curse is on the whole country ; the
dollar is the measure of every value, the stamp of every
success. What does not sell is a failure ; and what sells
succeeds."

" The hobby is oat, mah deah," said Miss Wood-
burn, in an audible aside to Alma.

" Were you speaking of me, Colonel Woodburn ?"
Alma asked.

" Surely not, my dear young lady."

" But he's been saying that awtusts are just as greedy
aboat money as anybody," said his daughter.

" The law of commercialism is on everything; in a

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

commercial society," the Colonel explained, softening
the tone in which his convictions were presented. " The
final reward of art is money, and not the pleasure of
creating."

" Perhaps they would be willing to take it all oat
in that if othah people would let them pay their bills
in the pleasure of creating," his daughter teased.

" They are helpless, like all the rest," said her father,
with the same deference to her as to other women. " I
do not blame them."

" Oh, mah goodness ! Didn't you say, sir, that Mr.
Beaton had bad manners ?"

Alma relieved a confusion which he seemed to feel
in reference to her. " Bad manners ? He has no man
ners ! That is, when he's himself. He has pretty good
ones when he's somebody else."

Miss Woodburn began, " Oh, mah— and then
stopped herself. Alma's mother looked at her with
distressed question, but the girl seemed perfectly cool
and contented; and she gave her mind provisionally
to a point suggested by Colonel Woodburn's talk.

" Still, I can't believe it was right to hold people in
slavery, to whip them and sell them. It never did seem
right to me," she added, in apology for her extreme
sentiments to the gentleness of her adversary.

" I quite agree with you, madam," said the Colonel.
" Those were the abuses of the institution. But if we
had not been vitiated on the one hand and threatened
on the other by the spirit of commercialism from the
North — and from Europe, too — those abuses could have
been eliminated, and the institution developed in the
direction of the mild patriarchalism of the divine in
tention." The Colonel hitched his chair, which figured
a hobby careering upon its hind-legs, a little toward
Mrs. Leighton, and the girls approached their heads

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

and began to whisper; they fell deferentially silent
when the Colonel paused in his argument, and went
on again when he went on.

At last they heard Mrs. Leighton saying, " And have
you heard from the publishers about your book yet?"

Then Miss Woodburn cut in, before her father could
answer : " The coase of commercialism is on that, too.
They are trahing to fahnd oat whethah it will pay."

" And they are right — quite right," said the Colonel.
" There is no longer any other criterion ; and even a
work that attacks the system must be submitted to the
tests of the system."

" The system won't accept destruction on any othah
tomes," said Miss Woodburn, demurely.

XI

AT the reception, where two men in livery stood
aside to let him pass up the outside steps of the house,
and two more helped him off with his overcoat indoors,
and a fifth miscalled his name into the drawing-room,
the Syracuse stone-cutter's son met the niece of Mrs.
Horn, and began at once to tell her about his evening
at the Dryfooses'. He was in very good spirits, for so
far as he could have been elated or depressed by his
parting with Alma Leighton he had been elated; she
had not treated his impudence with the contempt that
he felt it deserved ; she must still be fond of him ; and
the warm sense of this, by operation of an obscure but
well-recognized law of the masculine being, disposed
him to be rather fond of Miss Vance. She was a
slender girl, whose semi-sesthetic dress flowed about her
with an accentuation of her long forms, and redeemed
them from censure by the very frankness with which
it confessed them; nobody could have said that Mar
garet Vance was too tall. Her pretty little head, which
she had an effect of choosing to have little in the same
spirit of judicious defiance, had a good deal of reading
in it ; she was proud to know literary and artistic fash
ions as well as society fashions. She liked being sin
gled out by an exterior distinction so obvious as Bea
ton's, and she listened with sympathetic interest to his
account of those people. He gave their natural history
reality by drawing upon his own; he reconstructed their

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

plebeian past from the experiences of his childhood and
his youth of the pre-Parisian period ; and he had a
pang of suicidal joy in insulting their ignorance of the
world.

" What different kinds of people you meet !" said the
girl at last, with an envious sigh. Her reading had
enlarged the bounds of her imagination, if not her
knowledge; the novels nowadays dealt so much with
very common people, and made them seem so very
much more worth while than the people one met.

She said something like this to Beaton. He an
swered : " You can meet the people I'm talking of
very easily, if you want to take the trouble. It's what
they came to New York for. I fancy it's the great
ambition of their lives to be met."

" Oh yes," said Miss Vance, fashionably, and looked
down ; then she looked up and said, intellectually :
" Don't you think it's a great pity ? How much bet
ter for them to have stayed where they were and what
they were !"

" Then you could never have had any chance of
meeting them," said Beaton. " I don't suppose you
intend to go out to the gas country ?"

" No," said Miss Vance, amused. " Not that I
shouldn't like to go."

" What a daring spirit ! You ought to be on the staff
of Every Oilier Week" said Beaton.

" The staff— Every Other Week? What is it?"

" The missing link; the long-felt want of a tie be
tween the Arts and the Dollars." Beaton gave her a
very picturesque, a very dramatic sketch of the theory,
the purpose, and the personnel of the new enterprise.

Miss Vance understood too little about business of
any kind to know how it differed from other enter
prises of its sort. She thought it was delightful; she

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

thought Beaton must be glad to be part of it, though
he had represented himself so bored, so injured, by
Fulkerson's insisting upon having him. " And is it
a secret? Is it a thing not to be spoken of?"

" Tutt' aliro ! Fulkerson will be enraptured to have
it spoken of in society. He would pay any reasonable
bill for the advertisement."

" What a delightful creature ! Tell him it shall all
be spent in charity."

" He would like that. He would get two paragraphs
out of the fact, and your name would go into the ( Lit
erary Notes ' of all the newspapers."

"Oh, but I shouldn't want my name used!" cried
the girl, half horrified into fancying the situation
real.

" Then you'd better not say anything about Every
Other Week. Fulkerson is preternaturally unscru
pulous."

March began to think so too, at times. He was
perpetually suggesting changes in the make-up of the
first number, with a view to its greater vividness of
effect. One day he came and said : " This thing isn't
going to have any sort of get up and howl about it,
unless you have a paper in the first number going for
Bevans's novels. Better get Maxwell to do it."

" Why, I thought you liked Bevans's novels ?"

" So I did ; but where the good of Every Other Week
is concerned I am a Roman father. The popular gag
is to abuse Bevans, and Maxwell is the man to do it.
There hasn't been a new magazine started for the last
three years that hasn't had an article from Maxwell in
its first number cutting Bevans all to pieces. If peo
ple don't see it, they'll think Every Other Week is
some old thing."

March did not know whether Fulkerson was joking

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

or not. He suggested, " Perhaps they'll think it's an
old thing if they do see it."

" Well, get somebody else, then ; or else get Max
well to write under an assumed name. Or — I forgot!
He'll be anonymous under our system, anyway. Now
there ain't a more popular racket for us to work in that
first number than a good, swinging attack on Bevans.
People read his books and quarrel over 'em, and the
critics are all against him, and a regular flaying, with
salt and vinegar rubbed in afterward, will tell more
with people who like good old-fashioned fiction than
anything else. I like Bevans's things, but, dad burn
it! when it comes to that first number, I'd offer up
anybody."

" What an immoral little wretch you are, Fulker-
son !" said March, with a laugh.

Fulkerson appeared not to be very strenuous about
the attack on the novelist. " Say !" he called out, gay-
ly, " what should you think of a paper defending the
late lamented system of slavery?"

" What do you mean, Fulkerson ?" asked March,
with a puzzled smile.

Fulkerson braced his knees against his desk, and
pushed himself back, but kept his balance to the eye
by canting his hat sharply forward. " There's an old
cock over there at the widow's that's written a book
to prove that slavery was and is the only solution of
the labor problem. He's a Southerner."

" I should imagine," March assented.

" He's got it on the brain that if the South could
have been let alone by the commercial spirit and the
pseudo-philanthropy of the North, it would have work
ed out slavery into a perfectly ideal condition for the
laborer, in which he would have been insured against

want, and protected in all his personal rights by the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

state. He read the introduction to me last night. I
didn't catch on to all the points — his daughter's an
awfully pretty girl, and I was carrying that fact in
my mind all the time, too, you know — but that's about
the gist of it."

" Seems to regard it as a lost opportunity ?" said
March.

" Exactly ! What a mighty catchy title, heigh ?
Look well on the title-page."

" Well written ?"

" I reckon so ; I don't know. The Colonel read it
mighty eloquently."

" It mightn't be such bad business," said March,
in a muse. " Could you get me a sight of it without
committing yourself?"

" If the Colonel hasn't sent it off to another pub
lisher this morning. He just got it back with thanks
yesterday. He likes to keep it travelling."

" Well, try it. I've a notion it might be a curious
thing."

" Look here, March," said Fulkerson, with the effect
of taking a fresh hold ; " I wish you could let me have
one of those New York things of yours for the first
number. After all, that's going to be the great
card."

" I couldn't, Fulkerson ; I couldn't, really. I want
to philosophize the material, and I'm too new to it all
yet. I don't want to do merely superficial sketches."

" Of course ! Of course ! I understand that. Well,
I don't want to hurry you. Seen that old fellow of
yours yet? I think we ought to have that translation
in the first number ; don't you ? We want to give 'em
a notion of what we're going to do in that line."

" Yes," said March ; " and I was going out to look
up Lindau this morning. I've inquired at Maroni's,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

and he hasn't been there for several days. I've some
idea perhaps he's sick. But they gave nie his address,
and I'm going to see."

" Well, that's right. We want the first number to
be the key-note in every way."

March shook his head. " You can't make it so. The
first number is bound to be a failure always, as far as
the representative character goes. It's invariably the
case. Look at the first numbers of all the things you've
seen started. They're experimental, almost amateur
ish, and necessarily so, not only because the men that
are making them up are comparatively inexperienced
like ourselves, but because the material sent them to
deal with is more or less consciously tentative. People
send their adventurous things to a new periodical be
cause the whole thing is an adventure. I've noticed
that quality in all the volunteer contributions; it's in
the articles that have been done to order even. No;
I've about made up my mind that if we can get one
good striking paper into the first number that will take
people's minds off the others, we shall be doing all we
can possible hope for. I should like," March added,
less seriously, " to make up three numbers ahead, and
publish the third one first."

Fulkerson dropped forward and struck his fist on
the desk. " It's a first-rate idea. Why not do it 2"

March laughed. " Fulkerson, I don't believe there's
any quackish thing you wouldn't do in this cause.
From time to time I'm thoroughly ashamed of being
connected with such a charlatan."

Fulkerson struck his hat sharply backward. " Ah,
dad burn it! To give that thing the right kind of
start I'd walk up and down Broadway between two
boards, with the title-page of Every Other Week fac
similed on one and my name and address on the — "

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

He jumped to his feet and shouted, " March, I'll
do it!"

"What?"

" I'll hire a lot of fellows to make mud-turtles of
themselves, and I'll have a lot of big facsimiles of the
title-page, and I'll paint the town red !"

March looked aghast at him. " Oh, come, now,
Fulkerson !"

" I mean it. I was in London when a new man
had taken hold of the old CornhAU, and they were try
ing to boom it, and they had a procession of these mud-
turtles that reached from Charing Cross to Temple Bar.
' Cornliill Magazine. Sixpence, ^ot a dull page in
it.' I said to myself then that it was the livest thing
I ever saw. I respected the man that did that thing
from the bottom of my heart. I wonder I ever forgot
it. But it shows what a shaky thing the human mind
is at its best."

" You infamous mountebank !" said March, with
great amusement at Fulkerson's access ; " you call that
congeries of advertising instinct of yours the human
mind at its best? Come, don't be so diffident, Fulker
son. Well, I'm off to find Lindau, and when I come
back I hope Mr. Dryfoos will have you under control.
I don't suppose you'll be quite sane again till after the
first number is out. Perhaps public opinion will sober
you then."

" Confound it, March ! How do you think they will
take it? I swear I'm getting so nervous I don't know
half the time which end of me is up. I believe if we
don't get that thing out by the first of February it '11
be the death of me."

" Couldn't Avait till Washington's Birthday ? I was
thinking it would give the day a kind of distinction,
and strike the public imagination, if—

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No, I'll be dogged if I could !" Fulkerson lapsed
more and more into the parlance of his early life in
this season of strong excitement. " I believe if Beaton
lags any on the art leg I'll kill him."

" Well, I shouldn't mind your killing Beaton," said
March, tranquilly, as he went out.

He went over to Third Avenue and took the Elevated
down to Chatham Square. He found the variety of
people in the car as unfailingly entertaining as ever.
He rather preferred the East Side to the West Side
lines, because they offered more nationalities, condi
tions, and characters to his inspection. They draw not
only from the up-town American region, but from all
the vast hive of populations swarming between them
and the East River. He had found that, according to
the hour, American husbands going to and from busi
ness, and American wives going to and from shopping,
prevailed on the Sixth Avenue road, and that the most
picturesque admixture to these familiar aspects of hu
man nature were the brilliant eyes and complexions of
the American Hebrews, who otherwise contributed to
the effect of well-clad comfort and citizen-self-satisfac
tion of the crowd. Now and then he had found him
self in a car mostly filled with Neapolitans from the
constructions far up the line, where he had read how
they are worked and fed and housed like beasts ; and
listening to the jargon of their unintelligible dialect,
he had occasion for pensive question within himself
as to what notion these poor animals formed of a free
republic from their experience of life under its con
ditions; and whether they found them practically very
different from those of the immemorial brigandage and
enforced complicity with rapine under which they had
been born. But, after all, this was an infrequent ef
fect, however massive, of travel on the West Side,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

whereas the East offered him continual entertainment
in like sort. The sort was never quite so squalid. For
short distances the lowest poverty, the hardest pressed
lahor, must walk ; but March never entered a car with-
, out encountering some interesting shape of shahhy ad
versity, which was almost always adversity of foreign
birth. New York is still popularly supposed to be in
the control of the Irish, but March noticed in these
East Side travels of his what must strike every ob
server returning to the city after a prolonged absence :
the numerical subordination of the dominant race. If
they do not outvote them, the people of Germanic, of
Slavonic, of Pelasgic, of Mongolian stock outnumber
the prepotent Celts ; and March seldom found his specu
lation centred upon one of these. The small eyes, the
high cheeks, the broad noses, the puff lips, the bare,
cue-filleted skulls, of Kussians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese ;
the furtive glitter of Italians; the blonde dulness of
Germans; the cold quiet of Scandinavians — fire under
ice — were aspects that he identified, and that gave him
abundant suggestion for the personal histories he con
structed, and for the more public-spirited reveries in
which he dealt with the future economy of our hetero
geneous commonwealth. It must be owned that he did
not take much trouble about this ; what these poor peo
ple were thinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, suffering;
just where and how they lived ; who and what they in
dividually were — these were the matters of his waking
dreams as he stared hard at them, while the train raced
farther into the gay ugliness — the shapeless, graceful,
reckless picturesqueness of the Bowery.

There were certain signs, certain facades, certain
audacities of the prevailing hideousness that always
amused him in that uproar to the eye which the strident
forms and colors made. He was interested in the in-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

science with which the railway had drawn its erasing
line across the Corinthian front of an old theatre, al
most grazing its fluted pillars, and flouting its dishon
ored pediment. The colossal effigies of the fat women
and the tuft-headed Circassian girls of cheap museums ;
the vistas of shabby cross streets ; the survival of an old
hip - roofed house here and there at their angles ; the
Swiss chalet, histrionic decorativeness of the stations
in prospect or retrospect ; the vagaries of the lines that
narrowed together or stretched apart according to the
width of the avenue, but always in wanton disregard of
the life that dwelt, and bought and sold, and rejoiced
or sorrowed, and clattered or crawled, around, below,
above — were features of the frantic panorama that per
petually touched his sense of humor and moved his
sympathy. Accident and then exigency seemed the
forces at work to this extraordinary effect; the play
of energies as free and planless as those that force the
forest from the soil to the sky; and then the fierce
struggle for survival, with the stronger life persisting
over the deformity, the mutilation, the destruction, the
decay of the weaker. The whole at moments seemed to
him lawless, godless; the absence of intelligent, com
prehensive purpose in the huge disorder, and the vio
lent struggle to subordinate the result to the greater
good, penetrated with its dumb appeal the consciousness
of a man who had always been too self-enwrapped to
perceive the chaos to which the individual selfishness
must always lead.

But there was still nothing definite, nothing better
than a vague discomfort, however poignant, in his
half recognition of such facts; and he descended the
station stairs at Chatham Square with a sense of the
neglected opportunities of painters in that locality. He
said to himself that if one of those fellows were to see
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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

in Naples that turmoil of cars, trucks, and teams of
every sort, intershot with foot - passengers going and
coming to and from the crowded pavements, under
the web of the railroad tracks overhead, and amid the
spectacular approach of the streets that open into the
square, he would have it down in his sketch-book at
once. He decided simultaneously that his own local
studies must be illustrated, and that he must come with
the artist and show him just which bits to do, not know
ing that the two arts can never approach the same ma
terial from the same point. He thought he would par
ticularly like his illustrator to render the Dickensy,
cockneyish quality of the shabby-genteel ballad-seller
of whom he stopped to ask his way to the street where
Lindau lived, and whom he instantly perceived to be,
with his stock in trade, the sufficient object of an entire
study by himself. He had his ballads strung singly
upon a cord against the house wall, and held down in
piles on the pavement with stones and blocks of wood.
Their control in this way intimated a volatility which
was not perceptible in their sentiment. They were
mostly tragical or doleful : some of them dealt with the
wrongs of the working-man; others appealed to a gay
experience of the high seas ; but vastly the greater part
to memories and associations of an Irish origin ; some
still uttered the poetry of plantation life in the artless
accents of the end - man. Where they trusted them
selves, with syntax that yielded promptly to any ex
igency of rhythmic art, to the ordinary American
speech, it was to strike directly for the affections, to
celebrate the domestic ties, and, above all, to embalm
the memories of angel and martyr mothers whose dis
sipated sons deplored their sufferings too late. March
thought this not at all a bad thing in them ; he smiled

in patronage of their simple pathos ; he paid the tribute

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of a laugh when the poet turned, as he sometimes did,
from his conception of angel and martyr motherhood,
and portrayed the mother in her more familiar phases
of virtue and duty, with the retributive shingle or
slipper in her hand. He bought a pocketful of this
literature, popular in a sense which the most success
ful book can never be, and enlisted the ballad vendor
so deeply in the effort to direct him to Lindau's dwell
ing by the best way that he neglected another cus
tomer, till a sarcasm on his absent-mindedness stung
him to retort, " I'm a-trying to answer a gentle
man a civil question; that's where the absent-minded
comes in."

It seemed for some reason to be a day of leisure
with the Chinese dwellers in Mott Street, which March
had been advised to take first. They stood about the
tops of basement stairs, and walked two and two along
the dirty pavement, with their little hands tucked into
their sleeves across their breasts, aloof in immaculate
cleanliness from the filth around them, and scrutinizing
the scene with that cynical sneer of faint surprise to
which all aspects of our civilization seem to move their
superiority. Their numbers gave character to the
street, and rendered not them, but what was foreign
to them, strange there ; so that March had a sense of
missionary quality in the old Catholic church, built
long before their incursion was dreamed of. It seemed
to have come to them there, and he fancied in the
statued saint that looked down from its facade some
thing not so much tolerant as tolerated, something pro
pitiatory, almost deprecatory. It was a fancy, of
course; the street was sufficiently peopled with Chris
tian children, at any rate, swarming and shrieking at
their games ; and presently a Christian mother appear
ed, pushed along by two policemen on a handcart, with

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

a gelatinous tremor over the paving and a gelatinous
jouncing at the curbstones. She lay with her face to
the sky, sending up an inarticulate lamentation; but
the indifference of the officers forbade the notion of
tragedy in her case. She was perhaps a local celebrity ;
the children left off their games, and ran gayly troop
ing after her; even the young fellow and young girl
exchanging playful blows in a robust flirtation at the
corner of a liquor store suspended their scuffle with a
pleased interest as she passed. March understood the
unwillingness of the poor to leave the worst conditions
in the city for comfort and plenty in the country when
he reflected upon this dramatic incident, one of many
no doubt which daily occur to entertain them in such
streets. A small town could rarely offer anything com
parable to it, and the country never. He said that if
life appeared so hopeless to him as it must to the dwell
ers in that neighborhood he should not himself be will
ing to quit its distractions, its alleviations, for the vague
promise of unknown good in the distance somewhere.

But what charm could such a man as Lindau find
in such a place ? It could not be that he lived there
because he was too poor to live elsewhere : with a shut
ting of the heart, March refused to believe this as he
looked round on the abounding evidences of misery,
and guiltily remembered his neglect of his old friend.
Lindau could probably find as cheap a lodging in some
decenter part of the town ; and, in fact, there was some
amelioration of the prevailing squalor in the quieter
street which he turned into from Mott.

A woman with a tied-up face of toothache opened
the door for him when he pulled, with a shiver of
foreboding, the bell-knob, from wrhich a yard of rusty
crape dangled. But it was not Lindau who was dead,
for the woman said he was at home, and sent March

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

stumbling up the four or live dark flights of stairs that
led to his tenement. It was quite at the top of the
house, and when March obeyed the German - English
" Komm !" that followed his knock, he found himself
in a kitchen where a meagre breakfast was scattered
in stale fragments on the table before the stove. The
place was bare and cold ; a half - empty beer bottle
scarcely gave it a convivial air. On the left from this
kitchen was a room with a bed in it, which seemed also
to be a cobbler's shop: on the right, through a door
that stood ajar, came the German-English, voice again,
saying this time, " Hier !"

XII

MARCH pushed the door open into a room like that
on the left, but with a writing-desk instead of a cob
bler's bench, and a bed, where Lindau sat propped up,
with a coat over his shoulders and a skull-cap on his
head, reading a book, from which he lifted his eyes
to stare blankly over his spectacles at March. His
hairy old breast showed through the night-shirt, which
gaped apart; the stump of his left arm lay upon the
book to keep it open.

" Ah, my tear yo'ng f riendt ! Passil ! Marge ! Iss
it you ?" he called out, joyously, the next moment.

" Why, are you sick, Lindau ?" March anxiously
scanned his face in taking his hand.

Lindau laughed. " No ; I'm all righdt. Only a
lidtle lazy, and a lidtle eggonomigal. Idt's jeaper to
stay in pedt sometimes as to geep a fire a-goin' all
the time. Don't wandt to gome too hardt on the brafer
Mann, you know:

" Braver Mann, er schafft mir zu essen."

You remember ? Heine ? You readt Heine still ?
Who is your favorite boet now, Passil ? You write
some boetry yourself yet ? No ? Well, I am gladt to
zee you. Brush those baperss off of that jair. Well,
idt is goodt for zore eyess. How' didt you findt where
I lif?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" They told me at Maroni's," said March. He tried
to keep his eyes on Lindau's face, and not see the dis
comfort of the room, but he was aware of the shabby
and frowsy bedding, the odor of stale smoke, and the
pipes and tobacco shreds mixed with the books and
manuscripts strewn over the leaf of the writing-desk.
He laid down on the mass the pile of foreign magazines
he had brought under his arm. " They gave me an
other address first."

" Yes. I have chust gome here," said Lindau. " Idt
is not very cay, heigh ?"

" It might be gayer," March admitted, with a smile.
" Still," he added, soberly, " a good many people seem
to live in this part of the town. Apparently they die
here, too, Lindau. There is crape on your outside door.
I didn't know but it was for you."

" Nodt this time," said Lindau, in the same humor.
" Berhaps some other time. We geep the ondertakers
bretty pusy down here."

" Well," said March, " imdertakers must live, even
if the rest of us have to die to let them." Lindau
laughed, and March went on : " But I'm glad it isn't
your funeral, Lindau. And you say you're not sick,
and so I don't see why we shouldn't come to business."

" Pusiness ?" Lindau lifted his eyebrows. " You
gome on pusiness?"

" And pleasure combined," said March, and he went
on to explain the service he desired at Lindau's hands.

The old man listened with serious attention, and
with assenting nods that culminated in a spoken ex
pression of his willingness to undertake the transla
tions. March waited with a sort of mechanical expecta
tion of his gratitude for the work put in his way, but
nothing of the kind came from Lindau, and March was
left to say, " Well, everything is understood, then ; and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

I don't know that I need add that if you ever want
any little advance on the work — "

" I will ask you," said Lindau, quietly, " and I
thank you for that. But I can wait; I ton't needt
any money just at bresent." As if he saw some appeal
for greater frankness in March's eye, he went on : "I
tidn't gome here hegause I was too boor to lif any
where else, and I ton't stay in pedt begause I couldn't
haf a fire to geep warm if I wanted it. I'm nodt zo
padt off as Marmontel when he went to Paris. I'm a
lidtle loaxurious, that is all. If I stay in pedt it's zo
I can fling money away on somethings else. Heigh?"

" But what are you living here for, Lindau ?" March
smiled at the irony lurking in Lindau's words.

" Well, you zee, I foundt I was begoming a lidtle
too moch of an aristograt. I hadt a room oap in Creen-
vidge Willage, among dose pig pugs over on the West
Side, and I foundt " — Lindau's voice lost its jesting
quality, and his face darkened — " that I was beginning
to forget the boor !"

" I should have thought," said March, with impartial
interest, " that you might have seen poverty enough,
now and then, in Greenwich Village to remind you of
its existence."

" Nodt like here," said Lindau. " Andt you must
zee it all the dtime — zee it, hear it, smell it, dtaste it
— or you forget it. That is what I gome here for. I
was begoming a ploated aristograt. I thought I was
nodt like these beople down here, when I gome down
once to look aroundt; I thought I must be somethings
else, and zo I zaid I better take myself in time, and
I gome here among my brothers — the beccars and the
thiefs!" A noise made itself heard in the next room,
as if the door were furtively opened, and a faint
sound of tiptoeing and of hands clawing on a table.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Thiefs !" Lindau repeated, with a shout. " Lidtle
thiefs, that gabture your breakfast. Ah! ha! ha!"
A wild scurrying of feet, joyous cries and tittering,
and a slamming door followed upon his explosion, and
he resumed in the silence : " Idt is the children cot
pack from school. They gome and steal what I leaf
there on my daple. Idt's one of our lidtle chokes ; we
onderstand one another; that's all righdt. Once the
gobbler in the other room there he used to chase 'em ;
he couldn't onderstand their lidtle tricks. Now dot
goppler's teadt, and he ton't chase 'em any more. He
was a Bohemian. Gindt of grazy, I cuess."

" Well, it's a sociable existence," March suggested.
" But perhaps if you let them have the things without
stealing — "

" Oh no, no ! Most nodt mage them too gonceitedt.
They mostn't go and feel themselfs petter than those
boor millionairss that hadt to steal their money."

March smiled indulgently at his old friend's violence.
" Oh, there are fagots and fagots, you know, Lindau ;
perhaps not all the millionaires are so guilty."

" Let us speak German !" cried Lindau, in his own
tongue, pushing his book aside, and thrusting his skull
cap back from his forehead. " How much money can
a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing
some other man ?"

"Well, if you'll let me answer in English," said
March, " I should say about five thousand dollars a
year. I name that figure because it's my experience
that I never could earn more; but the experience of
other men may be different, and if they tell me they
can earn ten, or twenty, or fifty thousand a year, I'm
not prepared to say they can't do it."

Lindau hardly waited for his answer. ''' Not the
most gifted man that ever lived, in the practice of any

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

art or science, and paid at the highest rate that excep
tional genius could justly demand from those who have
worked for their money, could ever earn a million dol
lars. It is the landlords and the merchant princes, the
railroad kings and the coal barons (the oppressors to
whom you instinctively give the titles of tyrants) — it is
these that make the millions, but no man earns them.
What artist, what physician, what scientist, what poet
was ever a millionaire ?"

" I can only think of the poet Rogers/' said March,
amused by Lindau's tirade. " But he was as excep
tional as the other Rogers, the martyr, who died with
warm feet." Lindau had apparently not understood
his joke, and he went on, with the American ease of
mind about everything : " But you must allow, Lindau,
that some of those fellows don't do so badly with their
guilty gains. Some of them give work to armies of
poor people — >:

Lindau furiously interrupted : " Yes, when they have
gathered their millions together from the hunger and
cold and nakedness and ruin and despair of hundreds
of thousands of other men, they ' give work ' to the
poor ! They give work ! They allow their helpless
brothers to earn enough to keep life in them! They
give work! Who is it gives toil, and where will your
rich men be when once the poor shall refuse to give
toil? Why, you have come to give m.e work!"

March laughed outright. " Well, I'm not a million
aire, anyway, Lindau, and I hope you won't make an
example of me by refusing to give toil. I dare say the
millionaires deserve it, but I'd rather they wouldn't
suffer in my person."

" No," returned the old man, mildly relaxing the
fierce glare he had bent upon March. " No man de
serves to suffer at the hands of another. I lose myself

220

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

when I think of the injustice in the world. But I must
not forget that I am like the worst of them."

" You might go up Fifth Avenue and live among
the rich awhile, when you're in danger of that/7 sug
gested March. " At any rate," he added, by an im
pulse which he knew he could not justify to his wife,
" I wish you'd come some day and lunch with their
emissary. I've been telling Mrs. March about you, and
I want her and the children to see you. Come over
with these things and report." He put his hand on
the magazines as he rose.

" I will come," said Lindau, gently.

" Shall I give you your book ?" asked March.

" No ; I gidt oap bretty soon."

" And — and — can you dress yourself ?"

" I vhistle, and one of those lidtle fellowss comess.
We haf to dake gare of one another in a blace like
this. Idt iss nodt like the worldt," said Lindau,
gloomily.

March thought he ought to cheer him up. " Oh, it
isn't such a bad world, Lindau ! After all, the average
of millionaires is small in it." He added, " And I
don't believe there's an American living that could
look at that arm of yours and not wish to lend you a
hand for the one you gave us all." March felt this to
be a fine turn, and his voice trembled slightly in say
ing it.

Lindau smiled grimly. " You think zo ? I wouldn't
moch like to drost 'em. I've driedt idt too often."
He began to speak German again fiercely : " Besides,
they owe me nothing. Do you think I knowingly gave
my hand to save this oligarchy of traders and tricksters,
this aristocracy of railroad wreckers and stock gamblers
and mine-slave drivers and mill-serf owners? No; I
gave it to the slave ; the slave — ha ! ha ! ha ! — whom I

221

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

helped to unshackle to the common liberty of hunger
and cold. And you think I would be the beneficiary
of such a state of things ?"

" I'm sorry to hear you talk so, Lindau," said March ;
" very sorry." He stopped with a look of pain, and rose
to go. Lindau suddenly broke into a laugh and into
English.

" Oh, well, it is only dalk, Passil, and it toes me
goodt. My parg is worse than my pidte, I cuess. I
pring these things roundt bretty soon. Good-bye, Pas
sil, my tear poy. Auf wiedersehen !"

XIII

MARCH went away thinking of what Lindau had
said, but not for the impersonal significance of his
words so much as for the light they cast upon Lindau
himself. He thought the words violent enough, but in
connection with what he remembered of the cheery,
poetic, hopeful idealist, they were even more curious
than lamentable. In his own life of comfortable reverie
he had never heard any one talk so before, but he had
read something of the kind now and then in blatant
labor newspapers which he had accidentally fallen in
with, and once at a strikers' meeting he had heard rich
people denounced with the same frenzy. He had made
his own reflections upon the tastelessness of the rhet
oric, and the obvious buncombe of the motive, and he
had not taken the matter seriously.

He could not doubt Lindau's sincerity, and he won
dered how he came to that way of thinking. From his
experience of himself he accounted for a prevailing
literary quality in it ; he decided it to be from Lindau's
reading and feeling rather than his reflection. That
was the notion he formed of some things he had met
with in Ruskin to much the same effect; he regarded
them with amusement as the chimeras of a rhetorician
run away with by his phrases.

But as to Lindau, the chief thing in his mind was
a conception of the droll irony of a situation in which
so fervid a hater of millionaires should be working,
indirectly at least, for the prosperity of a man like

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Dryfoos, who, as March understood, had got his money
together out of every gambler's chance in speculation,
and all a schemer's thrift from the error and need of
others. The situation was not more incongruous, how
ever, than all the rest of the Every Other Week affair.
It seemed to him that there were no crazy fortuities
that had not tended to its existence, and as time went
on, and the day drew near for the issue of the first
number, the sense of this intensified till the whole lost
at moments the quality of a waking fact, and came to
be rather a fantastic fiction of sleep.

Yet the heterogeneous forces did co-operate to a real
ity which March could not deny, at least in their pres
ence, and the first number was representative of all
their nebulous intentions in a tangible form. As a re
sult, it was so respectable that March began to respect
these intentions, began to respect himself for combining
and embodying them in the volume which appealed to
him with a novel fascination, when the first advance
copy was laid upon his desk. Every detail of it was
tiresomely familiar already, but the whole had a fresh
interest now. He now saw how extremely fit and ef
fective Miss Leighton's decorative design for the cover
was, printed in black and brick-red on the delicate gray
tone of the paper. It was at once attractive and re
fined, and he credited Beaton with quite all he merited
in working it over to the actual shape. The touch and
the taste of the art editor were present throughout the
number. As Fulkerson said, Beaton had caught on
with the delicacy of a humming-bird and the tenacity
of a bulldog to the virtues of their illustrative process,
and had worked it for all it was worth. There were
seven papers in the number, and a poem on the last
page of the cover, and he had found some graphic com
ment for each. It was a larger proportion than would

224

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

afterward be allowed, but for once in a way it was al
lowed. Eulkerson said they could not expect to get
their money back on that first number, anyway. Seven
of the illustrations were Beaton's ; two or three he got
from practised hands; the rest were the work of un
known people which he had suggested, and then re
lated and adapted with unfailing ingenuity to the dif
ferent papers. He handled the illustrations with such
sympathy as not to destroy their individual quality,
and that indefinable charm which comes from good
amateur work in whatever art. He rescued them from
their weaknesses and errors, while he left in them the
evidence of the pleasure with which a clever young
man, or a sensitive girl, or a refined woman had done
them. Inevitably from his manipulation, however, the
art of the number acquired homogeneity, and there was
nothing casual in its appearance. The result, March
eagerly owned, was better than the literary result, and
he foresaw that the number would be sold and praised
chiefly for its pictures. Yet he was not ashamed of the
literature, and he indulged his admiration of it the
more freely because he had not only not written it, but
in a way had not edited it. To be sure, he had chosen
all the material, but he had not voluntarily put it all
together for that number; it had largely put itself to
gether, as every number of every magazine does, and
as it seems more and more to do, in the experience of
every editor. There had to be, of course, a story, and
then a sketch of travel. There was a literary essay
and a social essay; there was a dramatic trifle, very
gay, very light; there was a dashing criticism on the
new pictures, the new plays, the new books, the new
fashions; and then there was the translation of a bit
of vivid Russian realism, which the editor owed to
Lindau's exploration of the foreign periodicals left with

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A II AX AIM) or NEW FORTUNKS

him ; Lindau was himself a romanticist of the Victor
Hugo sort, but ho said this fragment of I)o.-.lo\evski
was good of its kind. The poem was a bit of society
verse, with a backward look into simpler and whole
somer experiences.

Fulkerson was exf rcmcly proud of the nuniher; but
he said it was too good — too good from every point of
view. The cover was too good, and the paper was too
good, and that device of rough edges, which got over
the objection to uncut, leaves while it, secured their
aesthetic effect, was a thing that he trembled for, though
he rejoiced in it as a stroke of the highest, genius. It
had come from Beaton at the last moment, as a com
promise, when the problem of the vulgar croppiness of
cut leaves and the unpopularity of uncut, leaves seemed
to have no solution but suicide. Fulkerson was still
morally crawling round on his hands and knees, as lie
said, in abject gratitude at Beaton's feet, though he
had his qualms, his questions; and he declared that
iJcatori was the most, inspired ass since llalaam's.
"We're all asses, of course," he admitted, in semi
apology to March; "but we're no such asses as Bea
ton." He said that if the tasteful decorativencss of
the thing did not kill it with the public, outright, its
literary eXC€ll6nC€ would give it the finishing stroke.
Perhaps that might he overlooked in the. impression of
novelty which a first number would give, but it, must,
never happen again. "lie implored March to promise
that it should never happen again; he said their only
hope was in the immediate cheapening of the whole
affair. It was bad enough to give the public too much
quantity for their money, but to throw in such quality
as that, was simply ruinous; it must be stopped. These
were the expressions of his intimate moods; every front

that he presented to the public wore a glow of lofty, of

22(1

'A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

devout exultation. His pride in the number gushed
out in fresh bursts of rhetoric to every one whom he
could get to talk with him about it. He worked the
personal kindliness of the press to the utmost. He did
not mind making himself ridiculous or becoming a joke
in the good cause, as he called it. He joined in the
applause when a humorist at the club feigned to drop
dead from his chair at Fulkerson'a introduction of the
topic, and he went on talking that first number into the
surviving spectators. He stood treat upon all occasions,
and he lunched attaches of the press at all hours. He
especially befriended the correspondents of the news
papers of other cities, for, as he explained to March,
those fellows could give him any amount of advertis
ing simply as literary gossip. Many of the fellows
were ladies who could not be so summarily asked out
to lunch, but Fulkerson's ingenuity was equal to every
exigency, and he contrived somehow to make each of
these feel that she had been possessed of exclusive in
formation. There was a moment when March con
jectured a willingness in Fulkerson to work Mrs. March
into the advertising department, by means of a tea to
these ladies and their friends which she should ad
minister in his apartment, but he did not encourage
Fulkerson to be explicit, and the moment passed.
Afterward, when he told his wife about it, he was
astonished to find that she wrould not have minded do
ing it for Fulkerson, and he experienced another proof
of the bluntness of the feminine instincts in some di
rections, and of the personal favor which Fulkerson
seemed to enjoy with the whole sex. This alone was
enough to account for the willingness of these corre
spondents to write about the first number, but March
accused him of sending it to their addresses with boxes
of Jacqueminot roses and Huyler candy.
16 227 *

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Fulkerson let him enjoy his joke. He said that lie
would do that or anything else for the good cause,
short of marrying the whole circle of female corre
spondents.

March was inclined to hope that if the first number
had been made too good for the country at large, the
more enlightened taste of metropolitan journalism
would invite a compensating favor for it in New
York. But first Fulkerson and then the event proved
him wrong. In spite of the quality of the magazine,
and in spite of the kindness which so many newspaper
men felt for Fulkerson, the notices in the New York
papers seemed grudging and provisional to the ardor
of the editor. A merit in the work was acknowledged,
and certain defects in it for which March had trembled
were ignored ; but the critics astonished him by select
ing for censure points which he was either proud of
or had never noticed; which being now brought to his
notice he still could not feel were faults. He owned
to Fulkerson that if they had said so and so against
it, he could have agreed with them, but that to say
thus and so was preposterous ; and that if the advertis
ing had not been adjusted with such generous recog
nition of the claims of the different papers, he should
have known the counting-room was at the bottom of
it. As it was, he could, only attribute it to perversity
or stupidity. It was certainly stupid to condemn a
magazine novelty like Every Oilier Week for being
novel; and to augur that if it failed, it would fail
through its departure from the lines on which all the
other prosperous magazines had been built, was in the
last degree perverse, and it looked malicious. The fact
that it was neither exactly a book nor a magazine ought
to be for it and not against it, since it would invade no
other field ; it would prosper on no ground but its own.

228

XIV

THE more March thought of the injustice of the
New York press (which had not, however, attacked the
literary quality of the number) the more bitterly he
resented it; and his wife's indignation superheated his
own. Every Oilier Week had become a very personal
affair with the whole family ; the children shared their
parents' disgust; Bella was outspoken in her denuncia
tions of a venal press. Mrs. March saw nothing but
ruin ahead, and began tacitly to plan a retreat to Bos
ton, and an establishment retrenched to the basis of
two thousand a year. She shed some secret tears in
anticipation -of the privations which this must involve;
but when Fulkerson came to see March rather late the
night of the publication day, she nobly told him that
if the worst came to the worst she could only have the
kindliest feeling toward him, and should not regard
him as in the slightest degree responsible.

" Oh, hold on, hold on !" he protested. " You don't
think we've made a failure, do you ?"

" Why, of course," she faltered, while March re
mained gloomily silent.

" Well, I guess we'll wait for the official count, first.
Even New York hasn't gone against us, and I guess
there's a majority coming down to Harlem River that
could sweep everything before it, anyway."

" What do you mean, Fulkerson ?" March demanded,
sternly.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, nothing ! Only, the News Company has or
dered ten thousand now ; and you know we had to give
them the first twenty on commission."

" What do you mean ?" March repeated ; his wife
held her breath.

" I mean that the first number is a booming suc
cess already, and that it's going to a hundred thou
sand before it stops. That unanimity and variety of
censure in the morning papers, combined with the at
tractiveness of the thing itself, has cleared every stand
in the city, and now if the favor of the country press
doesn't turn the tide against us, our fortune's made."
The Marches remained dumb. " Why, look here !
Didn't I tell you those criticisms would be the mak
ing of us, when they first began to turn you blue this
morning, March ?"

" He came home to lunch perfectly sick," said Mrs.
March"; "and I wouldn't let him go back again."

" Didn't I tell you so ?" Fulkerson persisted.

March could not remember that he had, or that he
had been anything but incoherently and hysterically
jocose over the papers, but he said, " Yes, yes — I
think so."

" I knew it from the start," said Fulkerson. " The
only other person who took those criticisms in the right
spirit was Mother Dryfoos — I've just been bolstering
up the Dryfoos family. She had them read to her by
Mrs. Mandel, and she understood them to be all the
most flattering prophecies of success. Well, I didn't
read between the lines to that extent, quite ; but I saw
that they were going to help us, if there was anything
in us, more than anything that could have been done.
And there was something in us! I tell you, March,
that seven-shooting self-cocking donkey of a Beaton has
given us the greatest start ! He's caught on like a mouse.

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He's made the thing awfully cliic; it's jimmy; there's
lots of dog about it. He's managed that process so
that the illustrations look as expensive as first-class
wood - cuts, and they're cheaper than chromos. He's
put style into the whole thing."

" Oh yes," said March, with eager meekness, " it's
Beaton that's done it."

Fulkerson read jealousy of Beaton in Mrs. March's
face. " Beaton has given us the start because his work
appeals to the eye. There's no denying that the pict
ures have sold this first number; but I expect the lit
erature of this first number to sell the pictures of the
second. I've been reading it all over, nearly, since I
found how the cat was jumping; I was anxious about
it, and I tell you, old man, it's good. Yes, sir ! I was
afraid maybe you had got it too good, with that Boston
refinement of yours; but I reckon you haven't. I'll
risk it. I don't see how you got so much variety into
so few things, and all of them palpitant, all of 'em on
the keen jump with actuality."

The mixture of American slang with the jargon of
European criticism in Fulkerson's talk made March
smile, but his wife did not seem to notice it in her
exultation. " That is just what I say," she broke in.
" It's perfectly wonderful. I never was anxious about
it a moment, except, as you say, Mr. Fulkerson, I was
afraid it might be too good."

They went on in an antiphony of praise till March
said : " Really, I don't see what's left me but to strike
for higher wages. I perceive that I'm indispensable."

" Why, old man, you're coming in on the divvy, you
know," said Fulkerson.

They both laughed, and when Fulkerson was gone,
Mrs. March asked her husband what a diwy was.

" It's a chicken before it's hatched."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"No! Truly?"

He explained, and she began to spend the divvy.

At Mrs. Leighton's Fulkerson gave Alma all the
honor of the success ; he told her mother that the girl's
design for the cover had sold every number, and Mrs.
Leighton believed him.

" Well, Ah think Ah maght have some of the glory,"
Miss Woodburn pouted. " Where am Ah comin' in ?"

" You're coming in on the cover of the next num
ber," said Fulkerson. " We're going to have your face
there ; Miss Leighton's going to sketch it in." He said
this reckless of the fact that he had already shown them
the design of the second number, which was Beaton's
weird bit of gas-country landscape.

" Ah don't see why you don't wrahte the fiction for
your magazine, Mr. Fulkerson," said the girl.

This served to remind Fulkerson of something. He
turned to her father. " I'll tell you what, Colonel
Woodburn, I want Mr. March to see some chapters
of that book of yours. I've been talking to him
about it."

" I do not think it would add to the popularity of
your periodical, sir," said the Colonel, with a stately
pleasure in being asked. " My views of a civilization
based upon responsible slavery would hardly be accept
able to your commercialized society."

" Well, not as a practical thing, of course," Fulker
son admitted. " But as something retrospective, specu
lative, I believe it would make a hit. There's so much
going on now about social questions; I guess people
would like to read it."

" I do not know that my work is intended to amuse
people," said the Colonel, with some state.

" Mah goodness ! Ah only wish it was, then," said
his daughter ; and she added : " Yes, Mr. Fulkerson, the

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Colonel will be very glad to submit portions of his
woak to yo' edito'. We want to have some of the honaw.
Perhaps we can say we helped to stop yo' magazine, if
we didn't help to stawt it.'7

They all laughed at her boldness, and Fulkerson
said : " It '11 take a good deal more than that to stop
Every Oilier Week. The Colonel's whole book couldn't
do it." Then he looked unhappy, for Colonel Wood-
burn did not seem to enjoy his reassuring words; but
Miss Woodburn came to his rescue. " You maght illus
trate it with the po'trait of the awthor's daughtaw, if
it's too late for the covah."

" Going to have that in every number, Miss Wood-
burn !" he cried.

" Oh, mah goodness !" she said, with mock humility.

Alma sat looking at her piquant head, black, uncon
sciously outlined against the lamp, as she sat working
by the table. " Just keep still a moment !"

She got her sketch-block and pencils, and began to
draw; Fulkerson tilted himself forward and looked
over her shoulder ; he smiled outwardly ; inwardly he
was divided between admiration of Miss Woodburn's
arch beauty and appreciation of the skill which repro
duced it; at the same time he was trying to remember
whether March had authorized him to go so far as to
ask for a sight of Colonel AVoodburn's manuscript. He
felt that he had trenched upon March's province, and
he framed one apology to the editor for bringing him
the manuscript, and another to the author for bringing
it back.

" Most Ah hold raght still like it was a photograph ?"
asked Miss Woodburn. " Can Ah toak ?"

" Talk all you want," said Alma, squinting her eyes.
" And you needn't be either adamantine, nor yet —
wooden."

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" Oli, ho' very good of von ! Well, if Ah can toak
— go on, Mr. Fulkerson !"

" Me talk ? I can't breathe till this thing is done !"
sighed Fulkerson ; at that point of his mental drama
the Colonel was behaving rustily about the return of
his manuscript, and he felt that he was looking his last
on Miss Woodburn's profile.

" Is she getting it raght ?" asked the girl.

" I don't know which is which," said Fulkerson.

" Oh, Ah hope Ah shall ! Ah don't want to go round
feelin' like a sheet of papah half the time."

" You could rattle on, just the same," suggested Alma.

" Oh, now ! Jost listen to that, Mr. Fulkerson. Do
you call that any way to toak to people ?"

" You might know which you were by the color,"
Fulkerson began, and then he broke off from the per
sonal consideration with a business inspiration, and
smacked himself on the knee, " We could print it in
color!"

Mrs. Leighton gathered up her sewing and held it
with both hands in her lap, while she came round, and
looked critically at the sketch and the model over her
glasses. " It's very good, Alma," she said.

Colonel Woodburn remained restively on his side of
the table. " Of course, Mr. Fulkerson, you were jest
ing, sir, when you spoke of printing a sketch of my
daughter."

" Why, I don't know— If you object—"

" I do, sir — decidedly," said the Colonel.

" Then that settles it, of course," said Fulkerson.
" I only meant—"

"Indeed it doesn't!" cried the girl. "Who's to
know who it's from? Ah'm jost set on hiavin' it
printed ! Ah'm going to appear as the head of Slavery
— in opposition to the head of Liberty."

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" There'll be a revolution inside of forty-eight hours,
and we'll have the Colonel's system going wherever a
copy of Every Other Week circulates," said Fulkerson.

" This sketch belongs to me," Alma interposed.
" I'm not going to let it be printed."

" Oh, mah goodness !" said Miss Woodbnrn, laugh
ing good-humor edly. " That's becose you were brought
up to hate slavery."

" I should like Mr. Beaton to see it," said Mrs.
Leighton, in a sort of absent tone. She added, to Ful-
kerson : " I rather expected he might be in to-night."

" Well, if he comes we'll leave it to Beaton," Ful-
kerson said, with relief in the solution, and an anxious
glance at the Colonel, across the table, to see how he
took that form of the joke. Miss Woodburn inter
cepted his glance and laughed, and Fulkerson laughed,
too, but rather forlornly.

Alma set her lips primly and turned her head first
on one side and then on the other to look at the sketch.
" I don't think we'll leave it to Mr. Beaton, even if he
comes."

" We left the other design for the cover to Beaton,"
Fulkerson insinuated. " I guess you needn't be afraid
of him."

" Is it a question of my being afraid ?" Alma asked ;
she seemed coolly intent on her drawing.

" Miss Leighton thinks he ought to be afraid of her,"
Miss Woodburn explained.

" It's a question of his courage, then ?" said Alma.

" Well, I don't think there are many young ladies
that Beaton's afraid of," said Fulkerson, giving him
self the respite of this purely random remark, while
he interrogated the faces of Mrs. Leighton and Colonel
Woodburn for some light upon the tendency of their

daughters' words.

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He was not helped by Mrs. Leighton's saying, with
a certain anxiety, " I don't know what you mean, Mr.
Fulkerson."

" Well, you're as much in the dark as I am myself,
then," said Fulkerson. " I suppose I meant that Bea
ton is rather — a — favorite, you know. The women like
him."

Mrs. Leighton sighed, and Colonel Woodburn rose
and left the room.

XV

IN the silence that followed, Fulkerson looked from
one lady to the other with dismay. " I seem to have
put my foot in it, somehow/' he suggested, and Miss
Woodburn gave a cry of laughter.

" Poo' Mr. Fulkerson ! Poo' Mr. Fulkerson ! Papa
thoat you wanted him to go.7'

" Wanted him to go ?" repeated Fulkerson.

" We always mention Mr. Beaton when we want to
get rid of papa."

" Well, it seems to me that I have noticed that he
didn't take much interest in Beaton, as a general topic.
But I don't know that I ever saw it drive him out of
the room before !"

" Well, he isn't always so bad," said Miss Wood-
burn. " But it was a case of hate at first sight, and it
seems to be growin' on papa."

" Well, I can understand that," said Fulkerson.
" The impulse to destroy Beaton is something that
everybody has to struggle against at the start."

" I must say, Mr. Fulkerson," said Mrs. Leighton,
in the tremor through which she nerved herself to differ
openly with any one she liked, " I never had to struggle
with anything of the kind, in regard to Mr. Beaton.
He has always been most respectful and — and — con
siderate, with me, whatever he has been with others."

" Well, of course, Mrs. Leighton !" Fulkerson came
back in a soothing tone. " But you see you're the rule

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that proves the exception. I was speaking of the way
men felt about Beaton. It's different with ladies; I
just said so."

" Is it always different ?" Alma asked, lifting her
head and her hand from her drawing, and staring at
it absently.

Fulkerson pushed both his hands through his whis
kers. " Look here ! Look here !" he said. " Won't
somebody start some other subject ? We haven't had
the weather up yet, have we ? Or the opera ? What is
the matter with a few remarks about politics ?"

" Why, Ah thoat you lahked to toak about the staff of
yo* magazine," said Miss Woodburn.

"Oh, I do!" said Fulkerson. "But not always
about the same member of it. He gets monotonous,
when he doesn't get complicated. I've just come round
from the Marches'," he added, to Mrs. Leighton.

" I suppose they've got thoroughly settled in their
apartment by this time." Mrs. Leighton said some
thing like this whenever the Marches were mentioned.
At the bottom of her heart she had not forgiven them
for not taking her rooms ; she had liked their looks so
much ; and she was always hoping that they were un
comfortable or dissatisfied ; she could not help wanting
them punished a little.

" Well, yes ; as much as they ever will be," Fulker
son answered. " The Boston style is pretty different,
you know; and the Marches are old-fashioned folks,
and I reckon they never went in much for bric-a-brac.
They've put away nine or ten barrels of dragon candle
sticks, but they keep finding new ones."

" Their landlady has just joined our class," said
Alma. " Isn't her name Green ? She happened to see
my copy of Every Oilier Week, and said she knew the
editor; and told me."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well, it's a little world," said Fulkerson. " You
seem to be touching elbows with everybody. Just think
of your having had our head translator for a model."

" Ah think that your whole publication revolves
aroand the Leighton family," said Miss Woodburn.

' That's pretty much so," Fulkerson admitted.
" Anyhow, the publisher seems disposed to do so."

" Are you the publisher ? I thought it was Mr.
Dryfoos," said Alma.

" It is."

"Oh!"

The tone and the word gave Fulkerson a discom
fort which he promptly confessed. " Missed again."

The girls laughed, and he regained something of his
lost spirits, and smiled upon their gayety, which lasted
beyond any apparent reason for it.

Miss Woodburn asked, " And is Mr. Dryfoos senio'
anything like ouali Mr. Dryfoos ?"

" :NTot the least."

" But he's jost as exemplarv ?"

"Yes; in his way."

" Well, Ah wish Ah could see all those pinks of
puffection togethah, once."

" Why, look here ! I've been thinking I'd celebrate
a little, when the old gentleman gets back. Have a
little supper — something of that kind. How would
you like to let me have your parlors for it, Mrs. Leigh-
ton? You ladies could stand on the stairs, and have a
peep at us, in the bunch."

" Oh, mah ! What a privilege ! And will Miss Alma
be there, with the othah contributors? Ah shall jost
expah of envy!"

" She won't be there in person," said Fulkerson,
" but she'll be represented by the head of the art de
partment."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Mali goodness ! And who'll the head of the pub
lishing department represent ?"

" He can represent you/' said Alma.

" Well, Ah want to be represented, someho'."

" We'll have the banquet the night before you appear
on the cover of our fourth number/' said Fulkerson.

" Ah thoat that was doubly fo'bidden/' said Miss
Woodburn. '* By the stern parent and the envious
awtust."

" We'll get Beaton to get round them, somehow. I
guess we can trust him to manage that."

Mrs. Leighton sighed her resentment of the impli
cation.

" I always feel that Mr. Beaton doesn't do himself
justice/' she began.

Fulkerson could not forego the chance of a joke.
" Well, maybe he would rather temper justice with
mercy in a case like his." This made both the younger
ladies laugh. " I judge this is my chance to get off with
my life/' he added, and he rose as he spoke. " Mrs.
Leighton, I am about the only man of my sex who
doesn't thirst for Beaton's blood most of the time.
But I know him and I don't. He's more kinds of a
good fellow than people generally understand. He
doesn't wear his heart upon his sleeve — not his ulster
sleeve, anyway. You can always count me on your side
when it's a question of finding Beaton not guilty if
he'll leave the State."

Alma set her drawing against the wall, in rising to
say good-night to Fulkerson. He bent over on his stick
to look at it. " Well, it's beautiful," he sighed, with
unconscious sincerity.

Alma made him a courtesy of mock modesty.
" Thanks to Miss Woodburn."

" Oh no ! All she had to do was simply to stay put."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"Don't you think Ah might have improved it if
Ah had looked better ?" the girl asked, gravely.

" Oh, you couldnt /" said Fulkerson, and he went
off triumphant in their applause and their cries of
"Which? which?"

Mrs. Leighton sank deep into an accusing gloom
when at last she found herself alone with her daugh
ter. " I don't know what you are thinking about, Alma
Leighton. If you don't like Mr. Beaton —

"I don't." '

" You don't ? You know better than that. You
know that you did care for him."

" Oh ! that's a very different thing. That's a thing
that can be got over."

" Got over !" repeated Mrs. Leighton, aghast.

" Of course, it can ! Don't be romantic, mamma.
People get over dozens of such fancies. They even
marry for love two or three times."

" Never !" cried her mother, doing her best to feel
shocked, and at last looking it.

Her looking it had no effect upon Alma. " You
can easily get over caring for people; but you can't
get over liking them — if you like them because they
are sweet and good. That's what lasts. I was a simple
goose, and he imposed upon me because he was a
sophisticated goose. Now the case is reversed."

" He does care for you, now. You can see it. Why
do you encourage him to come here?"

" I don't," said Alma. " I will tell him to keep away
if you like. But whether he comes or goes, it will be
the same."

" Not to him, Alma ! He is in love with you !"

" He has never said so."

" And you would really let him say so, when you

intend to refuse him?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

%

" I can't very well refuse him till he does say so."

This was undeniable. Mrs. Leighton could only de
mand, in an awful tone, " May I ask wliy — if you cared
for him ; and I know you care for him still — you. will
refuse him?"

Alma laughed. " Because — because I'm wedded to
my Art, and I'm not going to commit bigamy, what
ever I do."

"Alma!"

" Well, then, because I don't like him — that is, I
don't believe in him, and don't trust him. He's fasci
nating, but he's false and he's fickle. He can't help it,
I dare say."

" And you are perfectly hard. Is it possible that you
were actually pleased to have Mr. Fulkerson tease you
about Mr. Dryfoos ?"

" Oh, good-night, now, mamma ! This is becoming
personal."

PART THIRD

THE scheme of a banquet to celebrate the initial
success of Every Oilier Week expanded in Fulkerson's
fancy into a series. Instead of the publishing and
editorial force, with certain of the more representa
tive artists and authors sitting down to a modest supper
in Mrs. Leighton's parlors, he conceived of a dinner at
Delmonico's, with the principal literary and artistic
people throughout the country as guests, and an inex
haustible hospitality to reporters and correspondents,
from whom paragraphs, prophetic and historic, would
flow weeks before and after the first of the series. He
said the thing was a new departure in magazines; it
amounted to something in literature as radical as the
American Revolution in politics : it was the idea of self-
government in the arts; and it was this idea that had
never yet been fully developed in regard to it. That
was what must be done in the speeches at the dinner,
and the speeches must be reported. Then it would go
like wildfire. He asked March whether he thought Mr.
Depew could be got to come ; Mark Twain, he was
sure, wrould come ; he was a literary man. They ought
to invite Mr. Evarts, and the Cardinal and the leading
Protestant divines. His ambition stopped at nothing,
nothing but the question of expense ; there he had to
wait the return of the elder Dryfoos from the West,
and Dryfoos was still delayed at Moffitt, and Fulker-
son openly confessed that he was afraid he would stay

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

there till his own enthusiasm escaped in other activities,
other plans.

Fulkerson was as little likely as possible to fall un
der a superstitious subjection to another man; but
March could not help seeing that in this possible meas
ure Dryfoos was Fulkerson's fetish. He did not revere
him, March decided, because it was not in Fulkerson's
nature to revere anything; he could like and dislike,
but he could not respect. Apparently, however, Dry
foos daunted him somehow; and besides the homage
which those who have not pay to those who have, Ful-
kerson rendered Dryfoos the tribute of a feeling which
March could only define as a sort of bewilderment.
As well as March could make out, this feeling was
evoked by the spectacle of Dryfoos's unfailing luck,
which Fulkerson was fond of dazzling himself with.
It perfectly consisted with a keen sense of whatever
was sordid and selfish in a man on whom his career
must have had its inevitable effect. He liked to phi
losophize the case with March, to recall Dryfoos as he
was when he first met him still somewhat in the sap,
at Moffitt, and to study the processes by which he im
agined him to have dried into the hardened speculator,
without even the pretence to any advantage but his own
in his ventures. He was aware of painting the char
acter too vividly, and he warned March not to accept
it exactly in those tints, but to subdue them and shade
it for himself. He said that where his advantage was
not concerned, there was ever so much good in Dry
foos, and that if in some things he had grown inflexible,
he had expanded in others to the full measure of the
vast scale on which he did business. It had seemed a
little odd to March that a man should put money into
such an enterprise as Every Oilier We-ek and go off
about other affairs, not only without any sign of anx-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

iety, but without any sort of interest. But Fulkerson
said that was the splendid side of Dryfoos. He had a
courage, a magnanimity, that was equal to the strain
of any such uncertainty. He had faced the music once
for all, when he asked Fulkerson what the thing would
cost in the different degrees of potential failure; and
then he had gone off, leaving everything to Fulkerson
and the younger Dryfoos, with the instruction simply
to go ahead and not bother him about it. Fulkerson
called that pretty tall for an old fellow who used to
bewail the want of pigs and chickens to occupy his
mind. He alleged it as another proof of the versatility
of the American mind, and of the grandeur of institu
tions and opportunities that let every man grow to his
full size, so that any man in America could run the
concern if necessary. He believed that old Dryfoos
could step into Bismarck's shoes and run the Ger
man Empire at ten days' notice, or about as long as
it would take him to go from New York to Berlin.
But Bismarck would not know anything about Dry-
foos's plans till Dryfoos got ready to show his hand.
Fulkerson himself did not pretend to say what the old
man had been up to since he went West. He was at
Moffitt first, and then he was at Chicago, and then he
had gone out to Denver to look after some mines he
had out there, and a railroad or two; and now he was
at Moffitt again. He was supposed to be closing up his
affairs there, but nobody could say.

Fulkerson told March the morning after Dryfoos
returned that he had not only not pulled out at Moffitt,
but had gone in deeper, ten times deeper than ever.
He was in a royal good-humor, Fulkerson reported, and
was going to drop into the office on his way up from
the Street (March understood Wall Street) that after
noon. He was tickled to death with Every Other Week

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

so far as it had gone, and was anxious to pay his re
spects to the editor.

March accounted for some rhetoric in this, but let it
flatter him, and prepared himself for a meeting about
which he could see that Fulkerson was only less ner
vous than he had shown himself about the public
reception of the first number. It gave March a dis
agreeable feeling of being owned and of being about
to be inspected by his proprietor ; but he fell back upon
such independence as he could find in the thought of
those two thousand dollars of income beyond the caprice
of his owner, and maintained an outward serenity.

He was a little ashamed afterward of the resolution
it had cost him to do so. It was not a question of Dry-
f oos's physical presence : that was rather effective than
otherwise, and carried a suggestion of moneyed indif
ference to convention in the gray business suit of pro
vincial cut, and the low, wide-brimmed hat of flexible
black felt. He had a stick with an old-fashioned top
of buckhorn worn smooth and bright by the palm of
his hand, which had not lost its character in fat, and
which had a history of former work in its enlarged
knuckles, though it was now as soft as March's, and
must once have been small even for a man of Mr. Dry-
f oos's stature ; he was below the average size. But what
struck March was the fact that Dryfoos Deemed fur-
tiyelvjeonscious of being a coimtry'person, and of being
aware that in their meeting he was to be tried by other
tests than those which would have availed him as a
shrewd speculator. He evidently had some curiosity
about March, as the first of his kind whom he had en
countered ; some such curiosity as the country school
trustee feels and tries to hide in the presence of the
new schoolmaster. But the whole affair was, of course,
on a higher plane; on one side Dryfoos was much

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

more a man of the world than March was, and he
probably divined this at once, and rested himself upon
the fact in a measure. It seemed to be his preference
that his son should introduce them, for he came up
stairs with Conrad, and they had fairly made acquaint
ance before Fulkerson joined them.

Conrad offered to leave them at once, but his father
made him stay. " I reckon Mr. March and I haven't
got anything so private to talk about that we want to
keep it from the other partners. Well, Mr. March,
are you getting used to New York yet ? It takes a
little time."

" Oh yes. But not so much time as most places.
Everybody belongs more or less in New York; nobody
has to belong here altogether."

" Yes, that is so. You can try it, and go away if
you don't like it a good deal easier than you could
from a smaller place. Wouldn't make so much talk,
would it?" He glanced at March with a jocose light
in his shrewd eyes. " That is the way I feel about it
all the time: just visiting. Now, it wouldn't be that
way in Boston, I reckon ?"

" You couldn't keep on visiting there your whole
life," said March.

Dryfoos laughed, showing his lower teeth in a way
that was at once simple and fierce. " Mr. Fulkerson
didn't hardly know as he could get you to leave. I sup
pose you got used to it there. I never been in your
city."

" I had got used to it ; but it was hardly my city,
except by marriage. My wife's a Bostonian."

" She's been a little homesick here, then," said Dry
foos, with a smile of the same quality as his laugh.

" Less than I expected," said March. " Of course,
she was very much attached to our old home."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I guess my wife won't ever get used to N~ew York,"
said Dryfoos, and he drew in his lower lip with a sharp
sigh. "But my girls like it; they're young. You
never been out our way yet, Mr. March ? Out West ?"

" Well, only for the purpose of being born, and
brought up. I used to live in Crawfordsville, and
then Indianapolis."

" Indianapolis is bound to be a great place," said
Dryfoos. " I remember now, Mr. Fulkerson told me
you was from our State." He went on to brag of the
West, as if March were an Easterner and had to be
convinced. " You ought to see all that country. It's
a great country."

" Oh yes," said March, " I understand that." He
expected the praise of the great West to lead up to
some comment on Every Other Week; and there was
abundant suggestion of that topic in the manuscripts,
proofs of letter - press and illustrations, with advance
copies of the latest number strewn over his table.

But Dryfoos apparently kept himself from looking
at these things. He rolled his head about on his shoul
ders to take in the character of the room, and said to
his son, " You didn't change the woodwork, after all."

" No ; the architect thought we had better let it be,
unless we meant to change the whole place. He liked
its being old-fashioned."

" I hope you feel comfortable here, Mr. March," the
old man said, bringing his eyes to bear upon him again
after their tour of inspection.

" Too comfortable for a working-man," said March,
and he thought that this remark must bring them to
some talk about his work, but the proprietor only
smiled again.

" I guess I sha'n't lose much on this house," he re
turned, as if musing aloud. " This down-town prop-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

erty is coining up. Business is getting in on all these
side streets. I thought I paid a pretty good price for
it, too." He went on to talk of real estate, and March
began to feel a certain resentment at his continued
avoidance of the only topic in which they could really
have a common interest. " You live down this way
somewhere, don't you ?" the old man concluded.

" Yes. I wished to be near my work." March was
vexed with himself for having recurred to it ; but after
ward he was not sure but Dryfoos shared his own
diffidence in the matter, and was waiting for him to
bring it openly into the talk. At times he seemed wary
and masterful, and then March felt that he was being
examined and tested; at others so simple that March
might well have fancied that he needed encourage
ment, and desired it. He talked of his wife and daugh
ters in a way that invited March to say friendly things
of his family, which appeared to give the old man first
an undue pleasure and then a final distrust. At mo
ments he turned, with an effect of finding relief in it,
to his son and spoke to him across March of matters
which he was unacquainted with ; he did not seem
aware that this was rude, but the young man must
have felt it so; he always brought the conversation
back, and once at some cost to himself when his father
made it personal.

" I want to make a regular New York business man
out of that fellow," he said to March, pointing at Con
rad with his stick. " You s'pose I'm ever going to
do it?"

" Well, I don't know," said March, trying to fall
in with the joke. " Do you mean nothing but a busi
ness man ?"

The old man laughed at whatever latent meaning
he fancied in this, and said : " You think he would be

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

a little too much for me there ? Well, I've seen enough
of 'em to know it don't always take a large pattern of
a man to do a large business. But I want him to get
the business training, and then if he wants to go into
something else he knows what the world is, anyway.
Heigh ?"

" Oh yes !" March assented, with some compassion
for the young man reddening patiently under his
father's comment.

Dryfoos went on as if his son were not in hearing.
" Now that boy wanted to be a preacher. What does
a preacher know about the world he preaches against
when he's been brought up a preacher ? He don't know
so much as a bad little boy in his Sunday-school; he
knows about as much as a girl. I always told him,
You be a man first, and then you be a preacher, if you
want to. Heigh ?"

" Precisely." March began to feel some compassion
for himself in being witness of the young fellow's dis
comfort under his father's homily.

" When we first come to New York, I told him, Now
here's your chance to see the world on a big scale. You
know already what work and saving and steady habits
and sense will bring a man to ; you don't want to go
round among the rich ; you want to go among the poor,
and see what laziness and drink and dishonesty and
foolishness will bring men to. And I guess he knows,
about as well as anybody ; and if he ever goes to preach
ing he'll know what he's preaching about." The old
man smiled his fierce, simple smile, and in his sharp
eyes March fancied contempt of the ambition he had
balked in his son. The present scene must have been
one of many between them, ending in meek submission
on the part of the young man, whom his father, perhaps

without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child. March

252

'

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

took it hard that he should be made to suffer in the
presence of a co-ordinate power like himself, and began
to dislike the old man out of proportion to his offence,
which might have been mere want of taste, or an effect
of mere embarrassment before him. But evidently,
whatever rebellion his daughters had carried through
against him, he had kept his dominion over this gentle
spirit unbroken. March did not choose to make any
response, but to let him continue, if he would, entirely
upon his own impulse.

II

A SILENCE followed, of rather painful length. It
was broken by the cheery voice of Fulkerson, sent be
fore him to herald Fulkerson's cheery person. " Well,
I suppose you've got the glorious success of Every
Other Week down pretty cold in your talk by this
time. I should have been up sooner to join you, but
I was nipping a man for the last page of the cover. I
guess we'll have to let the Muse have that for an ad
vertisement instead of a poem the next time, March.
Well, the old gentleman given you boys your scold
ing?" The person of Fulkerson had got into the room
long before he reached this question, and had planted
itself astride a chair. Fulkerson looked over the chair-
back, now at March, and now at the elder Dryfoos as
he spoke.

March answered him. " I guess we must have been
waiting for you, Fulkerson. At any rate, we hadn't
got to the scolding yet."

" Why, I didn't suppose Mr. Dryfoos could V held
in so long. I understood he was awful mad at the
way the thing started off, and wanted to give you a
piece of his mind, when he got at you. I inferred as
much from a remark that he made." March and Dry
foos looked foolish, as men do when made the subject
of this sort of merry misrepresentation.

" I reckon my scolding will keep awhile yet," said
the old man, dryly.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well, then, I guess it's a good chance to give Mr.
Dryfoos an idea of what we've really done — just while
we're resting, as Artemus Ward says. Heigh, March ?"

" I will let you blow the trumpet, Fulkerson. I
think it belongs strictly to the advertising department,"
said March. He now distinctly resented the old man's
failure to say anything to him of the magazine; he
made his inference that it was from a suspicion of his
readiness to presume upon a recognition of his share in
the success, and he was determined to second no sort
of appeal for it.

" The advertising department is the heart and soul
of every business," said Fulkerson, hardily, " and I
like to keep my hand in with a little practise on the
trumpet in private. I don't believe Mr. Dryfoos has
got any idea of the extent of this thing. He's been out
among those Rackensackens, where we were all born,
and he's read the notices in their seven by nine dailies,
and he's seen the thing selling on the cars, and he thinks
he appreciates what's been done. But I should just
like to take him round in this little old metropolis
awhile, and show him Every Otlwr Week on the centre-
tables of the millionaires — the Vanderbilts and the
Astors — and in the homes of culture and refinement
everywhere, and let him judge for himself. It's the
talk of the clubs and the dinner-tables; children cry
for it; it's the Castoria of literature and the Pearline
of art, the Won't-be-happy-till-he-gets-it of every en
lightened man, woman, and child in this vast city. I
knew we could capture the country ; but, my goodness !
I didn't expect to have New York fall into our hands
at a blow. But that's just exactly what New York
has done. Every Other We-eJc supplies the long-felt
want that's been grinding round in N"ew York and
keeping it awake nights ever since the war. It's the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

culmination of all the high and ennobling ideals of the
past—'7

" How much/' asked Dryfoos, " do you expect to get
out of it the first year, if it keeps the start it's got ?"

" Comes right down to business, every time !" said
Fulkerson, referring the characteristic to March with
a delighted glance. " Well, sir, if everything works
right, and we get rain enough to fill up the springs,
and it isn't a grasshopper year. I expect to clear above
all expenses something in the neighborhood of twenty-
five thousand dollars."

" Humph ! And you are all going to work a year
— editor, manager, publisher, artists, writers, printers,
and the rest of 'em — to clear twenty-five thousand dol
lars ? — I made that much in half a day in Moffitt once.
I see it made in half a minute in Wall Street, some
times." The old man presented this aspect of the case
with a good-natured contempt, which included Fulker
son and his enthusiasm in an obvious liking.

His son suggested, " But when we make that money
here, no one loses it."

" Can you prove that ?" His father turned sharply
upon him. " Whatever is won is lost. It's all a game ;
it don't make any difference what you bet on. Busi
ness is business, and a business man takes his risks with
his eyes open."

" Ah, but the glory !" Fulkerson insinuated with
impudent persiflage. " I hadn't got to the glory yet,
because it's hard to estimate it; but put the glory at
the lowest figure, Mr. Dryfoos, and add it to the twenty-
five thousand, and you've got an annual income from
Every Oilier Week of dollars enough to construct a
silver railroad, double - track, from this office to the
moon. I don't mention any of the sister planets be
cause I like to keep within bounds."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Dryfoos showed his lower teeth for pleasure in
Fulkerson's fooling, and said, " That's what I like
about you, Mr. Fulkerson — you always keep within
bounds.7'

" Well, I ain't a shrinking Boston violet, like March,
here. More sunflower in my style of diffidence; but I
am modest, I don't deny it," said Fulkerson. " And I
do hate to have a thing overstated."

" And the glory — you do really think there's some
thing in the glory that pays ?"

" Not a doubt of it ! I shouldn't care for the paltry
return in money," said Fulkerson, with a burlesque
of generous disdain, "if it wasn't for the glory along
with it."

" And how should you feel about the glory if there
was no money along with it?"

" Well, sir, I'm happy to say we haven't come to
that yet."

" Now, Conrad, here," said the old man, with a sort
of pathetic rancor, " would rather have the glory alone.
I believe he don't even care much for your kind of
glory, either, Mr. Fulkerson."

Fulkerson ran his little eyes curiously over Conrad's
face and then March's, as if searching for a trace there
of something gone before which would enable him to
reach Dryfoos's whole meaning. He apparently re
solved to launch himself upon conjecture. " Oh, well,
we know how Conrad feels about the things of this
world, anyway. I should like to take 'em on the plane
of another sphere, too, sometimes ; but I noticed a good
while ago that this was the world I was born into, and
so I made up my mind that I would do pretty much
what I saw the rest of the folks doing here below.
'And I can't see but what Conrad runs the thing on
business principles in his department, and I guess you'll

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

find it so if you look into it. 1 consider that we're a
whole team and big dog under the wagon with you to
draw on for supplies, and March, here, at the head of
the literary business, and Conrad in the counting-room,
and me to do the heavy lying in the advertising part.
Oh, and Beaton, of course, in the art. I 'most forgot
Beaton — Hamlet with Hamlet left out."

Dryfoos looked across at his son. " Wasn't that the
fellow's name that was there last night?"

" Yes," said Conrad.

The old man rose. " Well, I reckon I got to be
going. You ready to go up-town, Conrad ?"

" Well, not quite yet, father."

The old man shook hands with. March, and went
down-stairs, followed by his son.

Fulkerson remained.

" He didn't jump at the chance you gave him to com
pliment us all round, Fulkerson," said March, with a
smile not wholly of pleasure.

Fulkerson asked, with as little joy in the grin he
had on, " Didn't he say anything to you before I
came in ?"

" Not a word."

" Dogged if 7 know what to make of it," sighed Ful
kerson, " but I guess he's been having a talk with
Conrad that's soured on him. I reckon maybe he came
back expecting to find that boy reconciled to the glory
of this world, and Conrad's showed himself just as
set against it as ever."

" It might have been that," March admitted, pen
sively. " I fancied something of the kind myself from
words the old man let drop."

Fulkerson made him explain, and then he said:
" That's it, then ; and it's all right. Conrad '11 come
round in time; and all we've got to do is to have pa-

258

A HAZARD OE NEW EORTUNES

tience with the old man till he does. I know he likes
you" Fulkerson affirmed this only interrogatively,
arid looked so anxiously to March for corroboration
that March laughed.

" He dissembled his love," he said ; but afterward,
in describing to his wife his interview with Mr. Dry-
foos, he was less amused with this fact.

When she saw that he was a little cast down by it,
she began to encourage him. a He's just a common,
ignorant man, and probably didn't know how to ex
press himself. You may be perfectly sure that he's
delighted with the success of the magazine, and that he
understands as well as you do that he owes it all to
you."

" Ah, I'm not so sure. I don't believe a man's any
better for having made money so easily and rapidly
as Dryfoos has done, and I doubt if he's any wiser.
I don't know just the point he's reached in his evolu
tion from grub to beetle, but I do know that so far as
it's gone the process must have involved a bewildering
change of ideals and criterions. I guess he's come to
despise a great many things that he once respected,
and that intellectual ability is among them — what we
call intellectual ability. He must have undergone a
moral deterioration, an atrophy of the generous in
stincts, and I don't see why it shouldn't have reached
his mental make-up. He has sharpened, but he has
narrowed; his sagacity has turned into suspicion, his
caution to meanness, his courage to ferocity. That's
the way I philosophize a man of Dryfoos's experience,
and I am not very proud when I realize that such a
man and his experience are the ideal and ambition of
most Americans. I rather think they came pretty near
being mine, once."

" No, dear, they never did," his wife protested.
18 259

A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well, they're not likely to be in the future. Tho
Dryfoos feature of Every Other Week is thoroughly
distasteful to me."

" Why, but he hasn't really got anything to do with
it, has he, beyond furnishing the money?"

" That's the impression that Fulkerson has allowed
us to get. But the man that holds the purse holds the
reins. He may let us guide the horse, but when he
likes he can drive. If we don't like his driving, then
we can get down."

Mrs. March was less interested in this figure of
speech than in the personal aspects involved. " Then
you think Mr. Fulkerson has deceived you?"

" Oh no !" said her husband, laughing. " But I
think he has deceived himself, perhaps."

" How ?" she pursued.

" He may have thought he was using Dryfoos, when
Dryfoos was using him, and he may have supposed he
was not afraid of him when he was very much so. His
courage hadn't been put to the test, and courage is a
matter of proof, like proficiency on the fiddle, you
know : you can't tell whether you've got it till you try."

" Nonsense ! Do you mean that he would ever sacri
fice you to Mr. Dryfoos ?"

" I hope he may not be tempted. But I'd rather be
taking the chances with Fulkerson alone than with
Fulkerson and Dryfoos to back him. Dryfoos seems,
somehow, to take the poetry and the pleasure out of the
thing."

Mrs. March was a long time silent. Then she began,
" Well, my dear, I never wanted to come to New
York—"

" Neither did I," March promptly put in.

" But now that we're here," she went on, " I'm not
going to have you letting every little thing discourage

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

you. I don't see what there was in Mr. Dryfoos's
manner to give you any anxiety. He's just a common,
stupid, inarticulate country person, and he didn't know
how to express himself, as I said in the beginning, and
that's the reason he didn't say anything."

" Well, I don't deny you're right about it."

" It's dreadful," his wife continued, " to be mixed
up with such a man and his family, but I don't be
lieve he'll ever meddle with your management, and, till
he does, all you need do is to have as little to do with
him as possible, and go quietly on your own way."

" Oh, I shall go on quietly enough," said March.
" I hope I sha'n't begin going stealthily."

" Well, my dear," said Mrs. March, " just let me
know when you're tempted to do that. If ever you
sacrifice the smallest grain of your honesty or your
self-respect to Mr. Dryfoos, or anybody else, I will
simply renounce you."

" In view of that I'm rather glad the management
of Every Oilier Week involves tastes and not convic
tions," said March,

Ill

THAT night Dryfoos was wakened from his after-
dinner nap by the sound of gay talk and nervous
giggling in the drawing-room. The talk, which was
Christine's, and the giggling, which was Mela's, were
intershot with the heavier tones of a man's voice; and
Dryfoos lay awhile on the leathern lounge in his li
brary, trying to make out whether he knew the voice.
His wife sat in a deep chair before the fire, with her
eyes on his face, waiting for him to wake.

" Who is that out there 2" he asked, without opening
his eyes.

" Indeed, indeed, .1 don't know, Jacob," his wife an
swered. " I reckon it's just some visitor of the girls'."

" Was I snoring ?"

" Not a bit. You was sleeping as quiet ! I did hate
to have 'em wake you, and I wTas just goin' out to shoo
them. They've been playin' something, and that made
them laugh."

" I didn't know but I had snored," said the old man,
sitting up.

" No," said his wife. Then she asked, wistfully,
'' Was you out at the old place, Jacob ?"

" Yes."

" Did it look natural ?"

' Yes ; mostly. They're sinking the wells down in
the woods pasture."

" And — the children's graves ?"

^

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" They haven't touched that part. But I reckon
we got to have 'em moved to the cemetery. I bought
a lot."

The old woman began softly to weep. " It does seem
too hard that they can't be let to rest in peace, pore
little things. I wanted you and me to lay there, too,
when our time come, Jacob. Just there, back o' the
beehives and iindcr them shoomakes — my, I can see
the very place! And I don't believe I'll ever feel at
home anywheres else. I woon't know where I am when
the trumpet sounds. I have to think before I can tell
where the east is in New York; and what if I should
git faced the wrong way when I raise ? Jacob, I won
der you could sell it!" Her head shook, and the fire
light shone on her tears as she searched the folds of
her dress for her pocket.

A peal of laughter came from the drawing-room,
and then the sound of chords struck on the piano.

" Hush ! Don't you cry, 'Liz'beth !" said Dryfoos.
" Here ; take my handkerchief. I've got a nice lot in
the cemetery, and I'm goin' to have a monument, with
two lambs on it — like the one you always liked so much.
It ain't the fashion, any more, to have family buryin'-
grounds; they're collectin' 'em into the cemeteries, all
round."

" I reckon I got to bear it," said his wife, muffling
her face in his handkerchief. " And I suppose the
Lord kin find me, wherever I am. But I always did
want to lay just there. You mind how we used to
go out and set there, after milkin', and watch the sun
go down, and talk about where their angels was, and
try to figger it out ?"
'"I remember, 'Liz'beth."

The man's voice in the drawing-room sang a snatch
of French song, insolent, mocking, salient; and then

263

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

( In-istine's attempted the same strain, and another cry
of laughter from Mela followed.

" Well, I always did expect to lay there. But I
reckon it's all right. It won't be a great while, now,
anyway. Jacob, I don't believe I'm a-goin' to live very
long. I know it don't agree with me here."

" Oh, I guess it does, 'Liz'beth. You're just a
little pulled down with the weather. It's coming
spring, and you feel it ; but the doctor says you're
all right. I stopped in, on the way up, and he
says so."

" I reckon he don't know everything," the old woman
persisted. " I've been runnin' dowrn ever since we left
Moffitt, and I didn't feel any too well there, even. It's
a very strange thing, Jacob, that the richer you git, the
less you ain't able to .stay where you want to, dead or
alive."

" It's for the children we do it," said Dryfoos. " We
got to give them their chance in the world."

" Oh, the world ! They ought to bear the yoke in
their youth, like we done. I know it's what Coonrod
would like to do."

Dryfoos got upon his feet. " If Coonrod '11 mind
his own business, and do what I want him to, he'll
have yoke enough to bear." He moved from his wife,
without further effort to comfort her, and pottered
heavily out into the dining - room. Beyond its ob
scurity stretched the glitter of the deep drawing-room.
His feet, in their broad, flat slippers, made no sound
on the dense carpet, and he came unseen upon the little
group there near the piano. Mela perched upon the
stool with her back to the keys, and Beaton bent over
Christine, who sat with a banjo in her lap, letting him
take her hands and put them in the right place on the
instrument. Her face was radiant with happiness, and

264

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mela was watching her with foolish, unselfish pleasure
in her bliss.

There was nothing wrong in the affair to a man of
Dryfoos's traditions and perceptions, and if it had heen
at home in the farm sitting-room, or even in his parlor
at Moffitt, he would not have minded a young man's
placing his daughter's hands on a banjo, or even hold
ing them there; it would have seemed a proper at
tention from him if he was courting her. But here, in
such a house as this, with the daughter of a man who
had made as much money as he had, he did not know
but it was a liberty. He felt the angry doubt of it
which beset him in regard to so many experiences of
his changed life; he wanted to show his sense of it, if
it was a liberty, but he did not know how, and he did
not know that it was so. Besides, he could not help
a touch of the pleasure in Christine's happiness which
Mela showed; and he would have gone back to the li
brary, if he could, without being discovered.

But Beaton had seen him, and Dryfoos, with a non
chalant nod to the young man, came forward. " What
you got there, Christine ?"

" A banjo," said the girl, blushing in her father's
presence.

Mela gurgled. " Mr. Beaton is learnun' her the first
position."

Beaton was not embarrassed. He was in evening
dress, and his face, pointed with its brown beard,
showed extremely handsome above the expanse of his
broad, white shirt-front. He gave back as nonchalant
a nod as he had got, and, without further greeting to
Dryfoos, he said to Christine : " No, no. You must
keep your hand and arm so." He held them in posi
tion. " There ! N"ow strike with your right hand.

See?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I don't believe I can ever learn," said the girl, with
a fond upward look at him.

" Oh yes, you can," said Beaton.

They both ignored Dryfoos in the little play of pro
tests which followed, and he said, half jocosely, half
suspiciously, " And is the banjo the fashion, now ?"
He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show
business, and associated it with end-men and blackened
faces and grotesque shirt-collars.

" It's all the rage," Mela shouted, in answer for all.
" Everybody plays it. Mr. Beaton borrowed this from
a lady friend of his."

" Humph ! Pity I got you a piano, then," said Dry
foos. " A banjo would have been cheaper."

Beaton so far admitted him to the conversation as to
seem reminded of the piano by his mentioning it. He
said to Mela, " Oh, won't you just strike those chords ?"
and as Mela wheeled about and beat the keys he took
the banjo from Christine and sat down with it. " This
way !" He strummed it, and murmured the tune Dry
foos had heard him singing from the library, while he
kept his beautiful eyes floating on Christine's. " You
try. that, now; it's very simple."

" Where is Mrs. Mandel ?" Dryfoos demanded, try
ing to assert himself.

Neither of the girls seemed to have heard him at
first in the chatter they broke into over what Beaton
proposed. Then Mela said, absently, " Oh, she had to
go out to see one of her friends that's sick," and she
struck the piano keys. " Come ; try it, Chris !"

Dryfoos turned about unheeded and went back to
the library. He would have liked to put Beaton out
of his house, and in his heart he burned against him
as a contumacious hand; he would have liked to dis
charge him from the art department of Every Other

266

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Week at once. But he was aware of not having treated
Beaton with much ceremony, and if the young man had
returned his behavior in kind, with an electrical re
sponse to his own feeling, had he any right to complain ?
After all, there was no harm in his teaching Christine
the banjo.

His wife still sat looking into the fire. " I can't
see," she said, " as we've got a bit more comfort of
our lives, Jacob, because we've got such piles and piles
of money. I wisht to gracious we was back on the
farm this minute. I wisht you had held out ag'inst
the childern about sellin' it; 'twould 'a' bin the best
thing fur 'em, I say. I believe in my soul they'll git
spoiled here in New York. I kin see a change in 'em
a'ready — in the girls."

Dryfoos stretched himself on the lounge again. " I
can't see as Coonrod is much comfort, either. Why
ain't he here with his sisters? What does all that work
of his on the East Side amount to ? It seems as if he
done it to cross me, as much as anything." Dryfoos
complained to his wife on the basis of mere affectional
habit, which in married life often survives the sense of
intellectual equality. He did not expect her to reason
with him, but there was help in her listening, and
though she could only soothe his fretfulness with soft
answers which were often wide of the purpose, he still
went to her for solace. "Here, I've gone into this
newspaper business, or whatever it is, on his account,
and he don't seem any more satisfied than ever. I can
see he hain't got his heart in it,"

" The pore boy tries ; I know he does, Jacob ; and
he wants to please you. But he give up a good deal
when he give up bein' a preacher; I s'pose we ought
to remember that."

" A preacher !" sneered Dryfoos. " I reckon bein' a

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

preacher wouldn't satisfy him now. He had the im
pudence to tell me this afternoon that he would like
to be a priest; and he threw it up to me that he never
could be because I'd kept him from studyin'."

" He don't mean a Catholic priest — not a Roman one,
Jacob/' the old woman explained, wistfully. " He's
told me all about it. They ain't the kind o' Catholics
we been used to ; some sort of 'Piscopalians ; and they
do a heap o' good amongst the poor folks over there.
He says we ain't got any idea how folks lives in them
tenement-houses, hundreds of 7em in one house, and
whole families in a room; and it burns in his heart
to help ?em like them Fathers, as he calls 'em, that
gives their lives to it. He can't be a Father, he says,
because he can't git the eddication now; but he can
be a Brother; and I can't find a word to say ag'inst it,
when it gits to talkin', Jacob."

" I ain't saying anything against his priests, 'Liz-
7beth," said Dryfoos. " They're all well enough in
their way; they've given up their lives to it, and
it's a matter of business with them, like any other.
But what I'm talking about now is Coonrod. I don't
object to his doin' all the charity he wants to, and the
Lord knows I've never been stingy with him about it.
He might have all the money he wants, to give round
any way he pleases."

" That's what I told him once, but he says money
ain't the thing — or not the only thing you got to give
to them poor folks. You got to give your time and
your knowledge and your love — I don't know what
all — you got to give yourself, if you expect to help
'em. That's what Coonrod says."

" Well, I can tell him that charity begins at home,"
said Dryfoos, sitting up in his impatience. " And
he'd better give himself to us a little — to his old father

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and mother. And his sisters. What's he doin' goin'
off there to his meetings, and I don't know what all,
an' leavin' them here alone ?"

" Why, ain't Mr. Beaton with 'em ?" asked the old
woman. " I thought I heared his voice."

" Mr. Beaton ! Of course he is ! And who's Mr.
Beaton, anyway ?"

" Why, ain't he one of the men in Coonrod's office ?
I thought I heared—

" Yes, he is ! But who is he ? What's he doing
round here? Is he makin' up to Christine?"

" I reckon he is. From Mely's talk, she's about crazy
over the fellow. Don't you like him, Jacob ?"

" I don't know him, or what he is. He hasn't got
any manners. Who brought him here ? How'd he
come to come, in the first place?"

" Mr. Fulkerson brung him, I believe," said the old
woman, patiently.

" Fulkerson !" Dryfoos snorted. " Where's Mrs.
Mandel, I should like to know ? He brought her,
too. Does she go traipsin' off this way every even-
ing?"

" "No, she seems to be here pretty regular most o'
the time. I don't know how we could ever git along
without her, Jacob; she seems to know just what to
do, and the girls would be ten times as outbreakin'
without her. I hope you ain't thinkin' o' turnin' her
off, Jacob ?"

Dryfoos did not think it necessary to answer such
a question. " It's all Fulkerson, Fulkerson, Fulker
son. It seems to me that Fulkerson about runs this
family. He brought Mrs. Mandel, and he brought
that Beaton, and he brought that Boston fellow! I
guess I give him a dose, though ; and I'll learn Fulker
son that he can't have everything his own way. I don't

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

want anybody to help me spend my money. I made
it, and I can manage it. I giiess Mr. Fulkerson can
bear a little watching now. He's been travelling pretty
free, and he's got the notion he's driving, maybe. I'm
agoing to look after that book a little myself."

" You'll kill yourself, Jacob," said his wife, " tryin'
to do so many things. And what is it all fur ? I don't
see as we're better off, any, for all the money. It's
just as much care as it used to be when we was all there
on the farm together. I wisht we could go back, Ja —

" We can't go back !" shouted the old man, fiercely.
" There's no farm any more to go back to. The fields
is full of gas-wells and oil-wells and hell-holes gen
erally; the house is tore down, and the barn's goin' — "
_,lLThe barn!" gasped the old woman. " Oh, my!"

" If I was to give all I'm worth this minute, we
couldn't go back to the farm, any more than them girls
in there could go back and be little children. I don't
say we're any better off, for the money. I've got more
of it now than I ever had; and there's no end to the
luck; it pours in. But I feel like I was tied hand and
foot. I don't know which way to move ; I don't know
what's best to do about anything. The money don't
seem to buy anything but more and more care and
trouble. We got a big house that we ain't at home
in ; and we got a lot of hired girls round under our
feet that hinder and don't help. Our children don't
mind us, and we got no friends or neighbors. But it
had to be. I couldn't help but sell the farm, and we'
can't go back to it, for it ain't there. So don't you say
anything more about it, 'Liz'beth."

aPore Jacob!" said his wife. "Well, I woon't,
dear."

IV

IT was clear to Beaton that Dryfoos distrusted him ;
and, the fact heightened his pleasure in Christine's
liking for him. He was as sure of this as he was of
the other, though he was not so sure of any reason
for his pleasure in it. She had her charm ; the charm
of wildness to which a certain wildness in himself re
sponded; and there were times when his fancy con
trived a common future for them, which would have
a prosperity forced from the old fellow's love of the
girl. Beaton liked the idea of this compulsion better
than he liked the idea of the money; there was some
thing a little repulsive in that; he imagined himself
rejecting it; he almost wished he was enough in love
with the girl to marry her without it; that would he
fine. He was taken with her in a certain measure, in
a certain way; the question was in what measure, in
what way.

It was partly to escape from this question that he
hurried down - town, and decided to spend with the
Leightons the hour remaining on his hands before it
was time to go to the reception for which he was
dressed. It seemed to him important that he should
see Alma Leighton. After all, it was her charm that
was most abiding with him ; perhaps it was to be final.
He found himself very happy in his present relations
with her. She had dropped that barrier of pretences
and ironical surprise. It seemed to him that they had

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A IIAZAKD OF NEW POKTUNES

gone back to the old ground of common artistic inter
est which he had found so pleasant the summer before.
Apparently she and her mother had both forgiven his
neglect of them in the first months of their stay in New
York; he was sure that Mrs. Leighton liked him as
wrell as ever, and, if there was still something a little
provisional in Alma's manner at times, it was some
thing that piqued more than it discouraged ; it made
him curious, not anxious.

He found the young ladies with Fulkerson when he
rang. He seemed to be amusing them both, and they
were both amused beyond the merit of so small a pleas
antry, Beaton thought, when Fulkerson said : " Intro
duce myself, Mr. Beaton: Mr. Fulkerson of Every
Oilier Week. Think I've met you at our place." The
girls laughed, and Alma explained that her mother was
not very well, and would be sorry not to see him. Then
she turned, as he felt, perversely, and went on talking
with Fulkerson and left him to Miss Woodburn.

She finally recognized his disappointment: "Ah
don't often get a chance at you, Mr. Beaton, and Ah'm
just goin' to toak yo' to death. Yo' have been Soath
yo'self, and yo' know ho' we do toak."

" I've survived to say yes," Beaton admitted.

" Oh, now, do you think we toak so much mo' than
you do in the No'th ?" the young lady deprecated.

" I don't know. I only know you can't talk too much
for me. I should like to hear you say Soaili and Jioase
and aboat for the rest of my life."

" That's what Ah call raght personal, Mr. Beaton.
Now Ah'm goin' to be personal, too." Miss Wood-
burn flung out over her lap the square of cloth she was
embroidering, and asked him : " Don't you think that's
beautiful ? Now, as an awtust — a great awtust ?"

" As a great awtust, yes," said Beaton, mimicking
" 272

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

her accent. " If I were less than great I might have
something to say about the arrangement of colors.
You're as bold and original as Xature."

" Really '\ Oh, now, do tell me yo' f avo'ite colo',
Mr. Beaton."

" My favorite color ? Bless my soul, why should I
prefer any ? Is blue good, or red wicked ? Do people
have favorite colors ?" Beaton found himself suddenly
interested.

" Of co'se they do," answered the girl. " Don't
awtusts ?"

" I never heard of one that had — consciously."

" Is it possible ? I supposed they all had. Now
mcik favo'ite colo' is gawnet. Don't you think it's a
pretty colo' ?"

" It depends upon how it's used. Do you mean in
neckties ?" Beaton stole a glance at the one Fulkerson
was wearing.

Miss Woodburn laughed with her face bowed upon
her wrist. " Ah do think you gentlemen in the No'th
awe ten taluns as lahvely as the ladies."

"Strange," said Beaton. " In the South— Soath,
excuse me ! — I made the observation that the ladies
were ten times as lively as the gentlemen. What is
that you're working ?"

" This ?" Miss Woodburn gave it another flirt, and
looked at it with a glance of dawning recognition.
" Oh, this is a table - covah. Wouldn't you lahke to
see where it's to go?"

" Why, certainly."

" Weil, if you'll be raght good I'll let yo' give me
some professional advass about putting something in
the corners or not, when you have seen it on the table."

She rose and led the way into the other room. Bea
ton knew she wanted to talk with him about something

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

else; but he waited patiently to let her play her comedy
out. She spread the cover on the table, and he advised
her, as he saw she wished, against putting anything in
the corners; just run a line of her stitch around the
edge, he said.

" Mr. Fulkerson and Ah, why, we've been having
a regular f aght aboat it," she commented. " But we
both agreed, fahnally, to leave it to you; Mr. Fulker
son said you'd be sure to be raght. Ah'm so glad you
took mah sahde. But he's a great admahrer of yours,
Mr. Beaton," she concluded, demurely, suggestively.

" Is he ? Well, I'm a great admirer of Fulkerson,"
said Beaton, with a capricious willingness to humor
her wish to talk about Fulkerson. " He's a capital
fellow; generous, magnanimous, with quite an ideal of
friendship and an eye single to the main chance all
the time. He would advertise Every Oilier Week on
his family vault,"

Miss Woodburn laughed, and said she should tell
him what Beaton had said.

" Do. But he's used to defamation from me, and
he'll think you're joking."

" Ah suppose," said Miss Woodburn, " that he's
quahte the tahpe of a New York business man." She
added, as if it followed logically, " He's so different
from what I thought a New York business man
would be."

" It's your Virginia tradition to despise business,"
said Beaton, rudely.

Miss Woodburn laughed again. ff DespaJise it ?
Mah goodness ! we want to get into it and ' woak it
fo' all it's wo'th,' as Mr. Fulkerson says. That tradi
tion is all past. You don't know what the Soath is
now. Ah suppose mah fathaw despahses business, but
he's a tradition himself, as Ah tell him." Beaton

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

would have enjoyed joining the young lady in any
thing she might be going to say in derogation of her
father, but he restrained himself, and she went on more
and more as if she wished to account for her father's
habitual hauteur with Beaton, if not to excuse it. " Ah
tell him he don't understand the rising generation. He
was brought up in the old school, and he thinks we're
all just lahke he was when he was young, with all tl !<>><•
ahdeals of chivalry and family ; but, mah goodness ! it's
money that cyoants no'adays in the Soath, just lahke
it does everywhere else. Ah suppose, if we could have
slavery back in the fawm mah fathaw thinks it could
have been brought up to, when the commercial spirit
wouldn't let it alone, it would be the best thing; but
we can't have it back, and Ah tell him we had better
have the commercial spirit as the next best thing."

Miss Woodburn went on, with sufficient loyalty and
piety, to expose the difference of her own and her
father's ideals, but with what Beaton thought less
reference to his own unsympathetic attention than to
a knowledge finally of the personnel and materiel of
Every Other Week and Mr. Fulkerson's relation to the
enterprise. " You most excuse my asking so many
questions, Mr. Beaton. You know it's all mah doing
that we awe heah in 2Tew York. Ah just told mah
fathaw that if he was evah goin' to do anything with
his wrahtings, he had got to come No'th, and Ah made
him come. Ah believe he'd have stayed in the Soath
all his lahfe. And now Mr. Fulkerson wants him to
let his editor see some of his wrahtings, and Ah wanted
to know something aboat the magazine. We awe a
great deal excited aboat it in this hoase, you know,
Mr. Beaton," she concluded, with a look that now trans
ferred the interest from Fulkerson to Alma. She led
the way back to the room where they were sitting, and
19 275

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

went up to triumph <>vor Fulkerson with Beaton's de
cision about the table-cover.

Alma was left with Beaton near the piano, and lie
began to talk about the Dryfooses as he sat down on
the piano - stool. He said he had been giving Miss
Dryfoos a lesson on the banjo; he had borrowed the
banjo of Miss Vance. Then he struck the chord he
had been trying to teach Christine, and played over
the air he had sung.

" How do you like that ?" he asked, whirling round.

" It seems rather a disrespectful little tune, some
how," said Alma, placidly.

Beaton rested his elbow on the corner of the piano
and gazed dreamily at her. " Your perceptions are
wonderful. It is disrespectful. I played it, up there,
because I felt disrespectful to them."

" Do you claim that as a merit ?"

" No, I state it as a fact. How can you respect such
people ?"

' You might respect yourself, then," said the girl.
" Or perhaps that wouldn't be so easy, either."

" No, it wouldn't. I like to have you say these
things to me," said Beaton, impartially.

" Well, I like to say them," Alma returned.

" They do me good."

" Oh, I don't know that that was my motive."

" There is no one like you — no one," said Beaton,
as if apostrophizing her in her absence. " To come
from that house, with its assertions of money — you
can hear it chink; you can smell the foul old bank
notes; it stifles you — into an atmosphere like this, is
like coming into another world."

" Thank you," said Alma. " I'm glad there isn't
that unpleasant odor here ; but I wish there was a little

more of the chinking.*'

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"No, no! Don't say that!" he implored. "I liko
to think that there is one soul uncontaminated by the
sense of money in this big, brutal, sordid city."

" You mean two," said Alma, with modesty. " But
if you stifle at the Dryfooses', why do you go there ?"

" Why do I go ?" he mused. " Don't you believe
in knowing all the natures, the types, you can ? Those
girls are a strange study: the young one is a simple,
earthly creature, as common as an oat-field; and the
other a sort of sylvan life : fierce, flashing, feline —

Alma burst out into a laugh. " What apt allitera
tion ! And do they like being studied ? I should think
the sylvan life might — scratch."

" No," said Beaton, with melancholy absence, " it-
only — purrs."

The girl felt a rising indignation. " Well, then, Mr.
Beaton, I should hope it would scratch, and bite, too.
I think you've no business to go about studying people,
as you do. It's abominable."

u Go on," said the young man. " That Puritan con
science of yours ! It appeals to the old Covenanter
strain in me — like a voice of pre-existence. Go on —

" Oh, if I went on I should merely say it was not
only abominable, but contemptible."

" You could be my guardian angel, Alma," said the
young man, making his eyes more and more slumbrous
and dreamy.

" Stuff ! I hope I have a soul above buttons !"

He smiled, as she rose, and followed her across the
room. " Good-night, Mr. Beaton," she said.

Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson came in from the
other room. " What ! You're not going, Beaton ?"

" Yes ; I'm going to a reception. I stopped in on
my way."

" To kill time," Alma explained.
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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well," said Fulkerson, gallantly, " this is the last
place I should like to do it. But I guess I'd better
be going, too. It has sometimes occurred to me that
there is such a thing as staying too late. But with
Brother Beaton, here, just starting in for an evening's
amusement, it does seem a little early yet. Can't you
urge me to stay, somebody ?"

The two girls laughed, and Miss Woodburn said:
" Mr. Beaton is such a butterfly of fashion ! Ah wish
Ah was on mah way to a pawty. Ah feel quahte
envious."

" But he didn't say it to make you," Alma explained,
with meek softness.

" Well, we can't all be swells. Where is your party,
anyway, Beaton ?" asked Fulkerson. " How do you
manage to get your invitations to those things ? I sup
pose a fellow has to keep hinting round pretty lively,
heigh?"

Beaton took these mockeries serenely, and shook
hands with Miss Woodburn, with the effect of hav
ing already shaken hands with Alma. She stood with
hers clasped behind her.

BEATON went away with the smile on his face which
he had kept in listening to Fulkerson, and carried it
with him to the reception. He believed that Alma was
vexed with him for more personal reasons than she
had implied; it flattered him that she should have re
sented what he told her of the Dryfooses. She had
scolded him in their behalf apparently; but really
because he had made her jealous by his interest, of
whatever kind, in some one else. What followed, had
followed naturally. Unless she had been quite a simple
ton she could not have met his provisional love-making
on any other terms ; and the reason why Beaton chiefly
liked Alma Leighton was that she was not a simpleton.
Even up in the country, when she was overawed by
his acquaintance, at first, she was not very deeply over
awed, and at times she was not overawed at all. At
such times she astonished him by taking his most sol
emn histrionics with flippant incredulity, and even bur
lesquing them. But he could see, all the same, that he
had caught her fancy, and he admired the skill with
which she punished his neglect when they met in New
York. He had really come very near forgetting the
Leightons; the intangible obligations of mutual kind
ness which hold some men so fast, hung loosely upon
him; it would not have hurt him to break from them
altogether; but when he recognized them at last, he
found that it strengthened them indefinitely to have

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Alma ignore them so completely. If she had been
sentimental, or softly reproachful, that would have been
the end ; he could not have stood it ; he would have had
to drop her. But when she met him on his own ground,
and obliged him to be sentimental, the game was in her
hands. Beaton laughed, now, when he thought of that,
and he said to himself that the girl had grown im
mensely since she had come to ISTew York; nothing
seemed to have been lost upon her; she must have kept
her eyes uncommonly wide open. He noticed that es
pecially in their talks over her work; she had profited
by everything she had seen and heard; she had all of
Wetmore's ideas pat; it amused Beaton to see how she
seized every useful word that he dropped, too, and
turned him to technical account whenever she could.
He liked that; she had a great deal of talent; there
was no question of that; if she were a man there could
be no question of her future. He began to construct
a future for her ; it included provision for himself, too ;
it was a common future, in which their lives and work
were united.

He was full of the glow of its prosperity when he
met Margaret Vance at the reception.

The house was one where people might chat a long
time together without publicly committing themselves
to an interest in each other except such a grew out of
each other's ideas. Miss Vance was there because she
united in her catholic sympathies or ambitions the ob
jects of the fashionable people and of the aesthetic
people who met there on common ground. It was
almost the only house in New York where this hap
pened often, and it did not happen very often there.
It was a literary house, primarily, with artistic quali
fications, and the frequenters of it were mostly authors
and artists; Wetmore, who was always trying to fit

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

everything with a phrase, said it was the unfrequenters
who were fashionable. There was great ease there, and
simplicity ; and if there was not distinction, it was not
for want of distinguished people, but because there
seems to be some solvent in New York life that reduces
all men to a common level, that touches everybody with
its potent magic and brings to the surface the deeply
underlying nobody. The effect for some temperaments,
for consciousness, for egotism, is admirable; for curi
osity, for hero worship, it is rather baffling. It is the
spirit of the street transferred to the drawing-room ; in-
discriminating, levelling, but doubtless finally whole
some, and witnessing the immensity of the place, if not
consenting to the grandeur of reputations or presences.
Beaton now denied that this house represented a
salon at all, in the old sense ; and he held that the
salon was impossible, even undesirable, with us, when
Miss Vance sighed for it. At any rate, he said that
this turmoil of coming and going, this bubble and
babble, this cackling and hissing of conversation was
not the expression of any such civilization as had cre
ated the salon. Here, he owned, were the elements of
intellectual delightfulness, but he said their assemblage
in such quantity alone denied the salon ; there was too
much of a good thing. The French word implied a
long evening of general talk among the guests, crowned
with a little chicken at supper, ending at cock-crow.
Here was tea, with milk or with lemon — baths of it —
and claret-cup for the hardier spirits throughout the
evening. It was very nice, very pleasant, but it was
not the little chicken — not the salon. In fact, he af
firmed, the salon descended from above, out of the great
world, and included the aesthetic world in it. But our
great world — the rich people, were stupid, with no wish
to be otherwise; they were not even curious about

2S1

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

authors and artists. Beaton fancied himself speaking
impartially, and so he allowed himself to speak bit
terly ; he said that in no other city in the world, except
Vienna, perhaps, were such people so little a part of
society.

" It isn't altogether the rich people's fault," said
Margaret; and she spoke impartially, too. "I don't
believe that the literary men and the artists would like
a salon that descended to them. Madame Geoffrin, you
know, was very plebeian; her husband was a business
man of some sort."

" He would have been a howling swell in New York,"
said Beaton, still impartially.

Wetmore came up to their corner, with a scroll of
bread and butter in one hand and a cup of tea in the
other. Large and fat, and clean-shaven, he looked like
a monk in evening dress.

" We were talking about salons," said Margaret.

" Why don't you open a salon yourself ?" asked
Wetmore, breathing thickly from the anxiety of getting
through the crowd without spilling his tea.

" Like poor Lady Barberina Lemon ?" said the girl,
with a laugh. " What a good story ! That idea of a
woman who couldn't be interested in any of the arts
because she was socially and traditionally the material
of them! We can never reach that height of non
chalance in this country."

" Not if we tried seriously ?" suggested the painter.
" I've an idea that if the Americans ever gave their
minds to that sort of thing, they could take the palm
— or the cake, as Beaton here would say — just as they
do in everything else. When we do have an aristoc
racy, it will be an aristocracy that will go ahead of
anything the world has ever seen. Why don't some
body make a beginning, and go in openly for an an-

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

cestry, and a lower middle class, and an hereditary
legislature, and all the rest? We've got liveries, and
crests, and palaces, and caste feeling. We're all right
as far as we've gone, and we've got the money to go
any length."

" Like your natural-gas man, Mr. Beaton," said the
girl, with a smiling glance round at him.

" Ah !" said Wetmore, stirring his tea, " has Beaton
got a natural-gas man ?"

" My natural-gas man," said Beaton, ignoring Wet-
more's question, " doesn't know how to live in his pal
ace yet, and I doubt if he has any caste feeling. I
fancy his family believe themselves victims of it. They
say — one of the young ladies does — that she never
saw such an unsociable place as New York; nobody
calls."

" That's good !" said Wetmore. " I suppose they're
all ready for company, too: good cook, furniture, ser
vants, carriages ?"

" Galore," said Beaton.

" Well, that's too bad. There's a chance for you,
Miss Vance, Doesn't your philanthropy embrace the
socially destitute as well as the financially ? Just think
of a family like that, without a friend, in a great city !
I should think common charity had a duty there — not
to mention the uncommon."

He distinguished that kind as Margaret's by a glance
of ironical deference. She had a repute for good works
which was out of proportion to the works, as it always
is, but she was really active in that way, under the
vague obligation, which we now all feel, to be helpful.
She was of the church which seems to have found a
reversion to the imposing ritual of the past the way
back to the early ideals of Christian brotherhood.

" Oh, they seem to have Mr. Beaton," Margaret
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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

answered, and Beaton felt obscurely flattered by her
reference to bis patronage of the Dryfooses.

He explained to Wetmore : " They have me because
they partly own me. Dryfoos is Fulkerson's financial
backer in Every Other Week."

" Is that so ? Well, that's interesting, too. Aren't
you rather astonished, Miss Vance, to see what a pretty
thing Beaton is making of that magazine of his ?"

" Oh," said Margaret, " it's so very nice, every way ;
it makes you feel as if you did have a country, after
all. It's as chic — that detestable little word ! — as those
new French books."

" Beaton modelled it on them. But you mustn't
suppose he does everything about Every Other Week;
he'd like you to. Beaton, you haven't come up to that
cover of your first number, since. That was the design
of one of my pupils, Miss Vance — a little girl that
Beaton discovered down in New Hampshire last sum

mer."

" Oh yes. And have you great hopes of her, Mr.
Wetmore ?"

" She seems to have more love of it and knack for
it than any one of her sex I've seen yet. It really
looks like a case of art for art's sake, at times. But
you can't tell. They're liable to get married at any
moment, you know. Look here, Beaton, when your
natural-gas man gets to the picture-buying stage in his
development, just remember your old friends, will you ?
You know, Miss Vance, those new fellows have their

C regular stages. They never know what to do with their
money, but they find out that people buy pictures, at
Mie point. They shut your things up in their houses
where nobody comes; and after a while they overeat
themselves — they don't know what else to do — and die
of apoplexy, and leave your pictures to a gallery, and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

then they see the light. It's slow, but it's pretty sure.
Well, I see Beaton isn't going to move on, as he ought
to do ; and so I must. He always was an unconvention
al creature."

Wetmore went away, but Beaton remained, and he
outstayed several other people who came up to speak to
Miss Vance. She was interested in everybody, and she
liked the talk of these clever literary, artistic, clerical,
even theatrical people, and she liked the sort of court
with which they recognized her fashion as well as her
cleverness; it was very pleasant to be treated intellect
ually as if she were one of themselves, and socially as
if she was not habitually the same, but a sort of guest
in Bohemia, a distinguished stranger. If it was Ar
cadia rather than Bohemia, still she felt her quality
of distinguished stranger. The flattery of it touched
her fancy, and not her vanity; she had very little
vanity. Beaton's devotion made the same sort of ap
peal ; it was not so much that she liked him as she liked
being the object of his admiration. She was a girl of
genuine sympathies, intellectual rather than sentimen
tal. In fact, she was an intellectual person, whom
qualities of the heart saved from being disagreeable,
as they saved her on the other hand from being worldly
or cruel in her fashionableness. She had read a great
many books, and had ideas about them, quite cour
ageous and original ideas; she knew about pictures —
she had been in Wetmore's class; she was fond of
music ; she was willing to understand even politics ; in
Boston she might have been agnostic, but in New York
she was sincerely religious ; she was very accomplished,
and perhaps it was her goodness that prevented her
feeling what was not best in Beaton.

" Do you think," she said, after the retreat of one
of the corners and goers left her alone with him again,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" that those young ladies would like me to call on
them ?"

" Those young ladies ?" Beaton echoed. " Miss
Leighton and — "

" No ; I have been there with my aunt's cards al
ready."

" Oh yes," said Beaton, as if he had known of it ;
he admired the pluck and pride with which Alma had
refrained from ever mentioning the fact to him, and
had kept her mother from mentioning it, which must
have been difficult.

" I mean the Miss Dryfooses. It seems really bar
barous, if nobody goes near them. We do all kinds of
things, and help all kinds of people in some ways, but
we let strangers remain strangers unless they know how
to make their way among us."

" The Dryfooses certainly wouldn't know how to
make their way among you," said Beaton, with a sort
of dreamy absence in his tone.

Miss Vance went on, speaking out the process of
reasoning in her mind, rather than any conclusions she
had reached. " We defend ourselves by trying to be
lieve that they must have friends of their own, or that
they would think us patronizing, and wouldn't like be
ing made the objects of social charity ; but they needn't
really suppose anything of the kind."

" I don't imagine they would," said Beaton. " I
think they'd be only too happy to have you come. But
you wouldn't know what to do with each other, in
deed, Miss Vance."

" Perhaps we shall like each other," said the girl,
bravely, " and then we shall know. What Church are
they of?"

" I don't believe they're of any," said Beaton. " The
mother was brought up a Dunkard."

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A iiAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

" A Dunkard ?"

Beaton told what he knew of the primitive sect, with
its early Christian polity, its literal interpretation of
Christ's ethics, and its quaint ceremonial of foot-wash
ing; he made something picturesque of that. "The
father is a Mammon-worshipper, pure and simple. I
suppose the young ladies go to church, but I don't
know where. They haven't tried to convert me."

" I'll tell them not to despair — after I've converted
them" said Miss Vance. " Will you let me use you as
a point d'appui, Mr. Beaton?"

" Any way you like. If you're really going to see
them, perhaps I'd better make a confession. I left
your banjo with them, after I got it put in order."

" How very nice ! Then we have a common interest
already."

" Do you mean the banjo, or—

" The banjo, decidedly. Which of them plays ?"

" Neither. But the eldest heard that the banjo was
' all the rage,' as the youngest says. Perhaps you can
persuade them that good works are the rage, too."

Beaton had no very lively belief that Margaret
would go to see the Dryfooses; he did so few of the
things he proposed that he went upon the theory that
others must be as faithless. Still, he had a cruel amuse7
ment in figuring the possible encounter between Mar
garet Vance, with her intellectual elegance, her eager
sympathies and generous ideals, and those girls with '
their rude past, their false and distorted perspective, '
their sordid and hungry selfishness, and their faith in
the omnipotence of their father's wealth wounded by
their experience of its present social impotence. At the
bottom of his heart he sympathized with them rather
than with her ; he was more like them.^

People had ceased coming, and some of them were

2S7

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

going. Miss Vance said she must go, too, and she was
about to rise, when the host came up with March;
Beaton turned away.

"Miss Vance, I want to introduce Mr. March, the
editor of Every Oilier Week. You oughtn't to be re
stricted to the art department. We literary fellows
think that arm of the service gets too much of the
glory nowadays." His banter was for Beaton, but he
was already beyond ear - shot, and the host went on :
" Mr. March can talk with you about your favorite
Boston. He's just turned his back on it."

" Oh, I hope not !" said Miss Vance. " I can't im
agine anybody voluntarily leaving Boston."

" I don't say he's so bad as that," said the host,
committing March to her. " He came to New York
because he couldn't help it — like the rest of us.
I never know whether that's a compliment to New
York or not."

They talked Boston a little while, without finding
that they had common acquaintance there ; Miss Vance
must have concluded that society was much larger in
Boston than she had supposed from her visits there, or
else that March did not know many people in it. But
she was not a girl to care much for the inferences that
might be drawn from such conclusions; she rather
prided herself upon despising them ; and she gave
herself to the pleasure of being talked to as if she
were of March's own age. In the glow of her sym
pathetic beauty and elegance he talked his best, and
tried to amuse her with his jokes, which he had the
art of tingeing with a little seriousness on one side.
He made her laugh; and he flattered her by making
her think; in her turn she charmed him so much by
enjoying what he said that he began to brag of his wife,
as a good husband always does when another woman

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

charms him ; and she asked, Oh was Mrs. March there ;
and would he introduce her ?

She asked Mrs. March for her address, and whether
she had a day ; and she said she would come to see her,
if she would let her. Mrs. March could not be so en
thusiastic about her as March was, but as they walked
home together they talked the girl over, and agreed
about her beauty and her amiability. Mrs. March said
she seemed very unspoiled for a person who must have
been so much spoiled. They tried to analyze her charm,
and they succeeded in formulating it as a combination
of intellectual fashionableness and worldly innocence.
" I think," said Mrs. March, " that city girls, brought
up as she must have been, are often the most innocent
of all. They never imagine the wickedness of the
world, and if they marry happily they go through
life as innocent as children. Everything combines to
keep them so ; the very hollowness of society shields
them. They are the loveliest of the human race. But
perhaps the rest have to pay too much for them."

" For such an exquisite creature as Miss \rance,"
said March, " we couldn't pay too much."

A wild laughing cry suddenly broke upon the air at
the street-crossing in front of them. A girl's voice
called out: " Kun, run, Jen! The copper is after
you." A woman's figure rushed stumbling across the
way and into the shadow of the houses, pursued by a
burly policeman.

" Ah, but if that's part of the price ?"

They went along fallen from the gay spirit of their
talk into a silence which he broke with a sigh. " Can
that poor wretch and the radiant girl we left yonder
really belong to the same system of things? How im
possible each makes the other seem !"

VI

MRS. HORN believed in the world and in society and
its unwritten constitution devoutly, and she tolerated
her niece's benevolent activities as she tolerated her
aesthetic sympathies because these things, however odd
ly, were tolerated — even encouraged — by society; and
they gave Margaret a charm. They made her original
ity interesting. Mrs. Horn did not intend that they
should ever go so far as to make her troublesome ; and
it was with a sense of this abeyant authority of her
aunt's that the girl asked her approval of her proposed
call upon the Dryfooses. She explained as well as she
could the social destitution of these opulent people, and
she had of course to name Beaton as the source of her
knowledge concerning them.

" Did Mr. Beaton suggest your calling on them ?"

" No ; he rather discouraged it."

" And why do you think you ought to go in this
particular instance? New York is full of people who
don't know anybody."

Margaret laughed. " I suppose it's like any other
charity: you reach the cases you know of. The others
you say you can't help, and you try to ignore them."

" It's very romantic," said Mrs. Horn. " I hope
you've counted the cost; all the possible consequences."

Margaret knew that her aunt had in mind their com
mon experience with the Leightons, whom, to give their
common conscience peace, she had called upon with her

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

aunt's cards and excuses, and an invitation for her
Thursdays, somewhat too late to make the visit seem
a welcome to New York. She was so coldly received,
not so much for herself as in her quality of envoy, that
her aunt experienced all the comfort which vicarious
penance brings. She did not perhaps consider suf
ficiently her niece's guiltlessness in the expiation. Mar
garet was not with her at St. Barnaby in the fatal
fortnight she passed there, and never saw the Leightons
till she went to call upon them. She never complained :
the strain of asceticism, which mysteriously exists in
us all, and makes us put peas, boiled or unboiled, in
our shoes, gave her patience with the snub which the
Leightons presented her for her aunt. But now she
said, with this in mind : " Nothing seems simpler than
to get rid of people if you don't want them. You
merely have to let them alone."

" It isn't so pleasant, letting them alone," said Mrs.
Horn.

" Or having them let you alone," said Margaret ;
for neither Mrs. Leighton nor Alma had ever come
to enjoy the belated hospitality of Mrs. Horn's Thurs
days.

" Yes, or having them let you alone," Mrs. Horn
courageously consented. " And all that I ask you,
Margaret, is to be sure that you really want to know
these people."

" I don't," said the girl, seriously, " in the usual
way."

" Then the question is whether you do in the un
usual way. They will build a great deal upon you,"
said Mrs. Horn, realizing how much the Leightons
must have built upon her, and how much out of pro
portion to her desert they must now dislike her; for
she seemed to have had them on her mind from the
20 291

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

time they came, and had always meant to recognize
any reasonable claim they had upon her.

" It seems very odd, very sad," Margaret returned,
" that you never could act unselfishly in society affairs.
If I wished to go and see those girls just to do them
a pleasure, and perhaps because if they're strange and
lonely, I might do them good, even — it would be im
possible."

" Quite," said her aunt. " Such a thing would be
quixotic. Society doesn't rest upon any such basis.
It can't; it would go to pieces, if people acted from
unselfish motives."

" Then it's a painted savage !" said the girl. " All
its favors are really bargains. It's gifts are for gifts
back again."

" Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Horn, with no more
sense of wrong in the fact than the political economist
has in the fact that wages are the measure of necessity
and not of merit. " You get what you pay for. It's
a matter of business." She satisfied herself with this
formula, which she did not invent, as fully as if it
were a reason ; but she did not dislike her niece's revolt
against it. That was part of Margaret's originality,
which pleased her aunt in proportion to her own con
ventionality ; she was really a timid person, and she
liked the show of courage which Margaret's mag
nanimity often reflected upon her. She had through
her a repute, with people who did not know her well,
for intellectual and moral qualities; she was supposed
to be literary and charitable ; she almost had opinions
and ideals, but really fell short of their possession.
She thought that she set bounds to the girl's originality
because she recognized them. Margaret understood
this better than her aunt, and knew that she had con
sulted her about going to see the Dryfooses out of

292

A HAZAKD OF NEW EOKTUNES

deference, and with no expectation of luminous in
struction. She was used to being a law to herself,
but she knew what she might and might not do, so
that she was rather a by-law. She was the kind of
girl that might have fancies for artists and poets, but
might end by marrying a prosperous broker, and leaven
ing a vast lump of moneyed and fashionable life with
her culture, generosity, and good-will. The intellectual
interests were first with her, but she might be equal
to sacrificing them; she had the best heart, but she
might know how to harden it; if she was eccentric,
her social orbit was defined ; comets themselves traverse
space on fixed lines. She was like every one else, a
congeries of contradictions and inconsistencies, but
obedient to the general expectation of what a girl of
her position must and must not finally be. Provision
ally, she was very much what she liked to be.

VII

MARGAKET VANCE tried to give herself some reason
for going to call upon the Dryfooses, but she could
find none better than the wish to do a kind thing. This
seemed queerer and less and less sufficient as she ex
amined it, and she even admitted a little curiosity as
a harmless element in her motive, without being very
well satisfied with it. She tried to add a slight sense
of social duty, and then she decided to have no motive
at all, but simply to pay her visit as she would to any
other eligible strangers she saw fit to call upon. She
perceived that she must be very careful not to let them
see that any other impulse had governed her; she de
termined, if possible, to let them patronize her; to be
very modest and sincere and diffident, and, above all,
not to play a part. This was easy, compared with the
choice of a manner that should convey to them the fact
that she was not playing a part. When the hesitating
Irish serving-man had acknowledged that the ladies
were at home, and had taken her card to them, she
sat waiting for them in the drawing-room. Her study
of its appointments, with their impersonal costliness,
gave her no suggestion how to proceed; the two sisters
were upon her before she had really decided, and she
rose to meet them with the conviction that she was
going to play a part for want of some chosen means of
not doing so. She found herself, before she knew it,
making her banjo a property in the little comedy, and

294

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

professing so much pleasure in the fact that Miss Dry-
foos was taking it up; she had herself been so much
interested by it. Anything, she said, was a relief from
the piano ; and then, between the guitar and the banjo,
one must really choose the banjo, unless one wanted
to devote one's whole natural life to the violin. Of
course, there was the mandolin ; but Margaret asked
if they did not feel that the bit of shell you struck it
with interposed a distance between you and the real
soul of the instrument; and then it did have such a
faint, mosquitoy little tone! She made much of the
question, which they left her to debate alone while they
gazed solemnly at her till she characterized the tone
of the mandolin, when Mela broke into a large, coarse
laugh.

" Well, that's just what it does sound like," she
explained defiantly to her sister. " I always feel like
it was going to settle somewhere, and I want to hit
myself a slap before it begins to bite. I don't see what
ever brought such a thing into fashion."

Margaret had not expected to be so powerfully sec
onded, and she asked, after gathering herself together,
" And you are both learning the banjo ?"

" My, no !" said Mela, " I've gone through enough
with the piano. Christine is learnun' it."

" I'm so glad you are making my banjo useful at
the outset, Miss Dryfoos." Both girls stared at her,
but found it hard to cope with the fact that this was
the lady friend whose banjo Beaton had lent them.
" Mr. Beaton mentioned that he had left it here. I
hope you'll keep it as long as you find it useful."

At this amiable speech even Christine could not help
thanking her. " Of course," she said, " I expect to
get another, right off. Mr. Beaton is going to choose
it for me."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" You are very fortunate. If you haven't a teacher
yet I should so like to recommend mine."

Mela broke out in her laugh again. " Oh, I guess
Christine's pretty well suited with the one she's got,"
she said, with insinuation. Her sister gave her a
frowning glance, and Margaret did not tempt her to
explain.

" Then that's much better," she said. " I have a
kind of superstition in such matters; I don't like to
make a second choice. In a shop I like to take the
first thing of the kind I'm looking for, and even if I
choose further I come back to the original."

" How funny !" said Mela. " Well, now, I'm just
the other way. I always take the last thing, after I've
picked over all the rest. My luck always seems to be
at the bottom of the heap. Now, Christine, she's more
like you. I believe she could walk right up blind
folded and put her hand on the thing she wants every
time."

" I'm like father," said Christine, softened a little
by the celebration of her peculiarity. " He says the
reason so many people don't get what they wrant is that
they don't want it bad enough. Now, when I want a
thing, it seems to me that I want it all through."

"Well, that's just like father, too," said Mela.
" That's the way he done when he got that eighty-
acre piece next to Moffitt that he kept when he sold
the farm, and that's got some of the best gas-wells on
it now that there is anywhere." She addressed the
explanation to her sister, to the exclusion of Margaret,
who, nevertheless, listened with a smiling face and a
resolutely polite air of being a party to the conversa
tion. Mela rewarded her amiability by saying to her,
finally, " You've never been in the natural-gas country,
have you ?"

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

" Oh no ! And I should so much like to see it !"
said Margaret, with a fervor that was partly voluntary.

" Would you ? Well, we're kind of sick of it, but I
suppose it would strike a stranger."

" / never got tired of looking at the big wells when
they lit them up," said Christine. " It seems as if the
world was on fire."

" Yes, and when you see the surface - gas burnun'
down in the woods, like it used to by our spring-house —
so still, and never spreadun' any, just like a beef of some
kind of wild flowers when you ketch sight of it a piece
off."

They began to tell of the wonders of their strange
land in an antiphony of reminiscences and descrip
tions; they unconsciously imputed a merit to them
selves from the number and violence of the wells on
their father's property; they bragged of the high civil
ization of Moffitt, which they compared to its advantage
with that of New York. They became excited by Mar
garet's interest in natural gas, and forgot to be sus
picious and envious.

She said, as she rose, " Oh, how much I should like
to see it all !" Then she made a little pause, and added :
" I'm so sorry my aunt's Thursdays are over ; she never
has them after Lent, but we're to have some people
Tuesday evening at a little concert which a musical
friend is going to give with some other artists. There
won't be any banjos, I'm afraid, but there'll be some
very good singing, and my aunt would be so glad if
you could come with your mother."

She put down her aunt's card on the table near her,
while Mela gurgled, as if it were the best joke: " Oh,
my! Mother never goes anywhere; you couldn't get
her out for love or money." But she was herself over
whelmed with a simple joy at Margaret's politeness,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

and showed it in a sensuous way, like a child, as if she
had been tickled. She came closer to Margaret and
seemed about to fawn physically upon her.

" Ain't she just as lovely as she can live ?" she de
manded of her sister when Margaret was gone.

" I don't know," said Christine. " I guess she
wanted to know who Mr. Beaton had been lending
her banjo to."

" Pshaw ! Do you suppose she's in love with him ?"
asked M^la, and then she broke into her hoarse laugh
at the look her sister gave her. " Well, don't eat me,
Christine ! I wonder who she is, anyway ? I'm goun'
to git it out of Mr. Beaton the next time he calls. I
guess she's somebody. Mrs. Mandel can tell. I wish
that old friend of hers would hurry up and git well —
or something. But I guess we appeared about as well
as she did. I could see she was afraid of you, Christine.
I reckon it's gittun' around a little about father; and
when it does I don't believe we shall want for callers.
Say, are you goun' ? To that concert of theirs ?"

" I don't know. "Not till I know who they are first."

" Well, we've got to hump ourselves if we're goun'
to find out before Tuesday."

As she went home Margaret felt wrought in her
that most incredible of the miracles, which, neverthe
less, any one may make his experience. She felt kindly
to these girls because she had tried to make them happy,
and she hoped that in the interest she had shown there
had been none of the poison of flattery. She was aware
that this was a risk she ran in such an attempt to do
good. If she had escaped this effect she was willing to
leave the rest with Providence.

VIII

THE notion that a girl of Margaret Vance's tradi
tions would naturally form of girls like Christine and
Mela Dryfoos would be that they were abashed in the
presence of the new conditions of their lives, and that
they must receive the advance she had made them with
a certain grateful humility. However they received it,
she had made it upon principle, from a romantic con
ception of duty; but this was the way she imagined
they would receive it, because she thought that she
would have done so if she had been as ignorant and
unbred as they. Her error was in arguing their at
titude from her own temperament, and endowing them,
for the purposes of argument, with her perspective.
They had not the means, intellectual or moral, of feel
ing as she fancied. If they had remained at home
on the farm where they were born, Christine would
have grown up that embodiment of impassioned sus
picion which we find oftenest in the narrowest spheres,
and Mela would always have been a good - natured
simpleton ; but they would never have doubted their
equality with the wisest and the finest. As it was,
they had not learned enough at school to doubt it, and
the splendor of their father's success in making money
had blinded them forever to any possible difference
against them. They had no question of themselves in
the social abeyance to which they had been left in !N"ew
York. They had been surprised, mystified; it was not
what they had expected; there must be some mistake.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

They were the victims of an accident, which would be
repaired as soon as the fact of their father's wealth had
got around. They had been steadfast in their faith,
through all their disappointment, that they were not
only better than most people by virtue of his money,
but as good as any; and they took Margaret's visit, so
far as they investigated its motive, for a sign that at
last it was beginning to get around ; of course, a thing
could not get around in New York so quick as it could
in a small place. They were confirmed in their belief
by the sensation of Mrs. Mandel when she returned to
duty that afternoon, and they consulted her about going
to Mrs. Horn's musicale. If she had felt any doubt at
the name — for there were Horns and Horns — the ad
dress on the card put the matter beyond question ; and
she tried to make her charges understand what a pre
cious chance had befallen them. She did not succeed;
they had not the premises, the experience, for a suf
ficient impression ; and she undid her work in part by
the effort to explain that Mrs. Horn's standing was
independent of money; that though she was positively
rich, she was comparatively poor. Christine inferred
that Miss Vance had called because she wished to be the
first to get in with them since it had begun to get
around. This view commended itself to Mela, too, but
without warping her from her opinion that Miss Vance
was all the same too sweet for anything. She had not
so vivid a consciousness of her father's money as Chris
tine had ; but she reposed perhaps all the more con
fidently upon its power. She was far from thinking
meanly of any one who thought highly of her for it ;
that seemed so natural a result as to be amiable, even
admirable ; she was willing that any such person should
get all the good there was in such an attitude toward
her.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

They discussed the matter that night at dinner be
fore their father and mother, who mostly sat silent at
their meals ; the father frowning absently over his plate,
with his head close to it, and making play into his
mouth with the back of his knife (he had got so far
toward the use of his fork as to despise those who still
ate from the edge of their knives), and the mother
partly missing hers at times in the nervous tremor that
shook her face from side to side.

After a while the subject of Mela's hoarse babble
and of Christine's high-pitched, thin, sharp forays of
assertion and denial in the field which her sister's voice
seemed to cover, made its way into the old man's con
sciousness, and he perceived that they were talking
with Mrs. Mandel about it, and that his wife was
from time to time offering an irrelevant and mistaken
comment. He agreed with Christine, and silently took
her view of the affair some time before he made any
sign of having listened. There had been a time in his
life when other things besides his money seemed ad
mirable to him. He had once respected himself for
the hard-headed, practical common sense which first
gavo him standing among his country neighbors; which
made him supervisor, school trustee, justice of the
peace, county commissioner, secretary of the Moffitt
County Agricultural Society. In those days he had
served the public with disinterested zeal and proud
ability; he used to write to the Lake Shore Farmer
on agricultural topics ; he took part in opposing, through
the Moffitt papers, the legislative waste of the people's
money; on the question of selling a local canal to the
railroad company, which killed that fine old State work,
and let the dry ditch grow up to grass, he might have
gone to the Legislature, but he contented himself with
defeating the Moffitt member who had voted for the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

job. If he opposed some measures for the general
good, like high schools and school libraries, it was be
cause he lacked perspective, in his intense individual
ism, and suspected all expense of being spendthrift.
He believed in good district schools, and he had a
fondness, crude but genuine, for some kinds of read
ing — history, and forensics of an elementary sort.

With his good head for figures he doubted doctors
and despised preachers; he thought lawyers were all
rascals, but he respected them for their ability ; he was
not himself litigious, but he enjoyed the intellectual
encounters of a difficult lawsuit, and he often attended
a sitting of the fall term of court, when he went to
town, for the pleasure of hearing the speeches. He
was a good citizen, and a good husband. As a good
father, he was rather severe with his children, and
used to whip them, especially the gentle Conrad, who
somehow crossed him most, till the twins died. After
that he never struck any of them ; and from the sight
of a blow dealt a horse he turned as if sick. It was
a long time before he lifted himself up from his sor
row, and then the will of the man seemed to have been
breached through his affections. He let the girls do as
they pleased — the twins had been girls ; he let them go
away to school, and got them a piano. It was they who
made him sell the farm. If Conrad had only had
their spirit he could have made him keep it, he felt;
and he resented the want of support he might have
found in a less yielding spirit than his son's.

His moral decay began with his perception of the
opportunity of making money quickly and abundantly,
which offered itself to him after he sold his farm. He
awoke to it slowly, from a desolation in which he tasted
the last bitter of homesickness, the utter misery of
idleness and listlessness. When he broke down and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

cried for the hard-working, wholesome life he had lost,
he was near the end of this season of despair, but he
was also near the end of what was host in. himself. lip
devolved upon a meaner ideal than that of conservative
good citizenship, Avhich had been his chief moral ex
perience: the money he had already made without ef
fort and without merit bred its unholy self-love in him ;
he began to honor money, especially money that had
been Avon suddenly and in large sums; for money^
that had been earned painfully, slowly, and in little
amounts, .._lie_ had qnl;v_._pJLty and contempL. The poison
oFlhat ambition to go somewhere and be somebody
which the local speculators had instilled into him be
gan to work in the vanity which had succeeded his
somewhat scornful self-respect; he rejected Europe as
the proper field for his expansion; he rejected Wash
ington; he preferred New York, whither the men who
have made money and do not yet know that money has
made them, all instinctively turn. He came where he
could watch his money breed more money, and bring
greater increase of its kind in an hour of luck than the
toil of hundreds of men could earn in a year. H©
called it speculation, stocks, the Street; and his pride,
his faith in himself, mounted with his luck. He ex
pected, when he had sated his greed, to begin to spend,
and he had formulated an intention to build a great
house, to add another to the palaces of the country-bred
millionaires who have come to adorn the great city. In
the mean time he made little account of the things that
occupied his children, except to fret at the ungrateful
indifference of his son to the interests that could alone
make a man of him. He did not know whether his
daughters were in society or not; with people coming
and going in the house he would have supposed they
must be so, no matter who the people were; in some

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A HAZAKD OP NEW FOKTUNES

vague way he felt that he had hired society in Mrs.
Mnudel, at~so~"nmch" a yeal\ Henever met a superior
himself except now and then a man of twenty or thirty
millions to his one or two, and then he felt his soul
creep within him, without a sense of social inferiority ;
it was a question of financial inferiority; and though
Dryfoos's soul bowed itself and crawled, it was with
a gambler's admiration of wonderful luck. Other men
said these many-millioned millionaires were smart, and
got their money by sharp practices to which lesser men
could not attain; but Dryfoos believed that he could
compass the same ends, by the same means, with the
same chances ; he respected their money, not them.

When he now heard Mrs. Mandel and his daughters
talking of that person, whoever she was, that Mrs.
Mandel seemed to think had honored his girls by
coming to see them, his curiosity was pricked as much
as his pride was galled.

" Well, anyway," said Mela, " I don't care whether
Christine's goun' or not ; I am. And you got to go with
me, Mrs. Mandel."

" Well, there's a little difficulty," said Mrs. Mandel,
with her unfailing dignity and politeness. " I haven't
been asked, you know."

" Then what are we goun' to do ?" demanded Mela,
almost crossly. She was physically too amiable, she
felt too well corporeally, ever to be quite cross. " She
might 'a' knowed — well known — we couldn't V come
alone, in New York. I don't see why we couldn't. I
don't call it much of an invitation."

" I suppose she thought you could come with your
mother," Mrs. Mandel suggested.

" She didn't say anything about mother. Did she,
Christine? Or, yes, she did, too. And I told her she
couldn't git mother out. Don't you remember?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I didn't pay much attention," said Christine. " I
wasn't certain we \vanted to go."

" I reckon you wasn't goun' to let her see that we
cared much," said Mela, half reproachful, half proud
of this attitude of Christine. " Well, I don't see but
what we got to stay at home." She laughed at this
lame conclusion of the matter.

" Perhaps Mr. Conrad — you could very properly
take him without an express invitation — " Mrs. Man-
del began.

Conrad looked up in alarm and protest. " I — I don't
think I could go that evening — "

" What's the reason ?" his father broke in, harshly.
" You're not such a sheep that you're afraid to go into
company with your sisters ? Or are you too good to go
with them ?"

" If it's to be anything like that night when them
hussies come out and danced that way," said Mrs.
Dryfoos, " I don't blame Coonrod for not wantun' to
go. I never saw the beat of it."

Mela sent a yelling laugh across the table to her
mother. " Well, I wish Miss Vance could 'a' heard
that ! Why, mother, did you think it like the ballet ?"

" Well, I didn't know, Mely, child," said the old
woman. " I didn't know what it was like. I hain't
never been to one, and you can't be too keerful where
you go, in a place like New York."

" What's the reason you can't go ?" Dryfoos ignored
the passage between his wife and daughter in making
this demand of his son, with a sour face.

" I have an engagement that night — it's one of our
meetings — "

" I reckon you can let your meeting go for one
night," said Dryfoos. " It can't be so important as
all that, that you must disappoint your sisters."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I don't like to disappoint those poor creatures.
They depend so much upon the meetings —

" I reckon they can stand it for one night," said
the old man. He added, " The poor ye have with you
always."

" That's so, Coonrod," said his mother. " It's the
Saviour's own words."

" Yes, mother. But they're not meant just as father
used them."

" How do you know how they were meant ? Or
how I used them ?" cried the father. " Now you just
make your plans to go with the girls, Tuesday night.
They can't go alone, and Mrs. Mandel can't go with
them."

" Pshaw!" said Mela. " We don't want to take Con
rad away from his meetun', do we? Chris?"

" I don't know," said Christine, in her high, fine
voice. " They could get along without him for one
night, as father says."

" Well, I'm not a-goun? to take him," said Mela.
" Now, Mrs. Mandel, just think out some other
way. Say! What's the reason we couldn't get
somebody else to take us just as well? Ain't that
rulable?"

" It would be allowable — "

" Allowable, I mean" Mela corrected herself.

" But it might look a little significant, unless it was
some old family friend."

" Well, let's get Mr. Fulkerson to take us. He's the
oldest family friend we got."

" I won't go with Mr. Fulkerson," said Christine,
serenely.

" Why, I'm sure, Christine," her mother pleaded,
" Mr. Fulkerson is a very good young man, and very
nice appearun'."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mela shouted, " He's ten times as pleasant as that
old Mr. Beaton of Christine's !"

Christine made no effort to break the constraint that
fell upon the table at this sally, but her father said:
" Christine is right, Mela. It wouldn't do for you to
go with any other young man. Conrad will go with
you."

" I'm not certain I want to go, yet," said Christine.

" Well, settle that among yourselves. But if you
Avant to go, your brother will go with you."

" Of course, Coonrod '11 go, if his sisters wants him
to," the old woman pleaded. " I reckon it ain't agoun'
to be anything very bad; and if it is, Coonrod, why
you can just git right up and come out."

" It will be all right, mother. And I will go, of
course."

" There, now, I knowed you would, Coonrod. Now,
fawther!" This appeal was to make the old man say
something in recognition of Conrad's sacrifice.

"You'll always find," he said, "that it's those of
your own household that have the first claim on you."

" That's so, Coonrod," urged his mother. " It's
Bible truth. Your fawtlier ain't a perfesser, but ho
always did read his Bible. Search the Scriptures.
That's what it means."

" Laws !" cried Mely, " a body can see, easy enough
from mother, where Conrad's wantun' to be a preacher
comes from. I should 'a' thought she'd 'a' wanted to
been one herself."

" Let your women keep silence in the churches," said
the old woman, solemnly.

" There you go again, mother ! I guess if you was
to say that to some of the lady ministers nowadays,
you'd git yourself into trouble." Mela looked round
for approval, and gurgled out a hoarse laugh.
21 307

IX

THE Dryfooses went late to Mrs. Horn's musicals,
in spite of Mrs. Handel's advice. Christine made the
delay, both because she wished to show Miss Vance
that she was^anxious, and because she had some vague
notion of the distinction of arriving late at any sort of
entertainment. Mrs. Mandel insisted upon the differ
ence between this musicale and an ordinary reception;
but Christine rather fancied disturbing a company that
had got seated, and perhaps making people rise and
stand, while she found her way to her place, as she
had seen them do for a tardy comer at the theatre.

Mela, whom she did not admit to her reasons or
feelings always, followed her with the servile admira
tion she had for all that Christine did; and she took
on trust as somehow successful the result of Christine's
obstinacy, when they were allowed to stand against the
wall at the back of the room through the whole of the
long piece begun just before they came in. There had
been no one to receive them ; a few people, in the rear
rows of chairs near them, turned their heads to glance at
them, and then looked away again. Mela had her mis
givings; but at the end of the piece Miss Vance came
up to them at once, and then Mela knew that she had
her eyes on them all the time, and that Christine must
have been right. Christine said nothing about their
coming late, and so Mela did not make any excuse,
and Miss Vance seemed to expect none. She glanced

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A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

with a sort of surprise at Conrad, when Christine in
troduced him; Mela did not know whether she liked
their bringing him, till she shook hands with him, and
said: " Oh, I am very glad indeed! Mr. Dryfoos and
I have met before." Without explaining where or
when, she led them to her aunt arid presented them,
and then said, " I'm going to put you with some friends
of yours," and quickly seated them next the Marches.
Mela liked that well enough; she thought she might
have some joking with Mr. March, for all his wife
was so stiff; but the look which Christine wore seemed
to forbid, provisionally at least, any such recreation.
On her part, Christine was cool with the Marches. It
went through her mind that they must have told Miss
Vance they knew her; and perhaps they had boasted
of her intimacy. She relaxed a little toward them
when she saw Beaton leaning against the wall at the
end of the row next Mrs. March. Then she conjectured
that he might have told Miss Vance of her acquaintance
with the Marches, and she bent forward and nodded
to Mrs. March across Conrad, Mela, and Mr. March.
She conceived of him as a sort of hand of her father's,
but she was willing to take them at their apparent
social valuation for the time. She leaned back in her
chair, and did not look up at Beaton after the first
furtive glance, though she felt his eyes on her.

The music began again almost at once, before Mela
had time to make Conrad tell her where Miss Vance
had met him before. She would not have minded in
terrupting the music; but every one else seemed so at
tentive, even Christine, that she had not the courage.

The concert went on to an end without realizing
for her the ideal of pleasure which one ought to find
in society. She was not exacting, but it seemed to
her there were very few young men, and when the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

music was over, and their opportunity came to be
sociable, they were not very sociable. They were not
introduced, for one thing; but it appeared to Mela that
they might have got introduced, if they had any sense ;
she saw them looking at her, and she was glad she had
dressed so much ; she was dressed more than any other
lady there, and either because she was the most dressed
of any person there, or because it had got around who
her father was, she felt that she had made an impres
sion on the young men. In her satisfaction with this,
and from her good nature, she was contented to be
served with her refreshments after the concert by Mr.
March, and to remain joking with him. She was at
her ease; she let her hoarse voice out in her largest
laugh; she accused him, to the admiration of those
near, of getting her into a perfect gale. It appeared
to her, in her own pleasure, her mission to illustrate
to the rather subdued people about her what a good
time really was, so that they could have it if they
wanted it. Her joy was crowned when March modestly
professed himself unworthy to monopolize her, and ex
plained how selfish he felt in talking to a young lady
when there were so many young men dying to do so.

" Oh, pshaw, dyun', yes !" cried Mela, tasting the
irony. " I guess I see them !"

He asked if he might really introduce a friend of
his to her, and she said, Well, yes, if he thought he
could live to get to her; and March brought up a man
whom he thought very young and Mela thought very
old. He was a contributor to Every Other Week, and
so March knew him; he believed himself a student of
human nature in behalf of literature, and he now set
about studying Mela. He tempted her to express her
opinion on all points, and he laughed so amiably at
the boldness and humorous vigor of her ideas that she

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

was delighted with him. She asked him if he was a
New- Yorker by birth ; and she told him she pitied him,
when he said he had never heen West. She professed
herself perfectly sick of New York, and urged him to
go to Moffitt if he wanted to see a real live town. He
wondered if it would do to put her into literature just
as she was, with all her slang _and brag, but he decided
that he would have to subdue her a great deal: he__did
not see how he could reconcile the facts of her con
versation with the facts of her appearance : her beauty,
heF~splendor of dress, her apparent right to be where
shejwas. These things perplexed him; he was afraid
the great American novel, if true, must be incredible.
Mela said he ought to hear her sister go on about New
York when they first came; but she reckoned that
Christine was getting so she could put up with it a
little better, now. She looked significantly across the
room to the place where Christine was now talking with
Beaton ; and the student of human nature asked, Was
she here? and, Would she introduce him? Mela said
she would, the first chance she got; and she added,
They would be much pleased to have him call. She
felt herself to be having a beautiful time, and she got
directly upon such intimate terms with the student of
human nature that she laughed with him about some
peculiarities of his, such as his going so far about to
ask things he wanted to know from her; she said she
never did believe in beating about the bush much. She
had noticed the same thing in Miss Vance when she
came to call that day ; and when the young man owned
that he came rather a good deal to Mrs. Horn's house,
she asked him, Well, what sort of a girl was Miss
Vance, anyway, and where did he suppose she had met
her brother? The student of human nature could not
say as to this, and as to Miss Vance he judged it safest

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

to treat of the non-society side of her character, her
activity in charity, her special devotion to the work
among the poor on the East Side, which she personally
engaged in.

" Oh, that's where Conrad goes, too !" Mela inter
rupted. " I'll bet anything that's where she met him.
I wisht I could tell Christine! But I suppose she
would want to kill me, if I was to speak to her now"

The student of human nature said, politely, " Oh,
shall I take you to her ?"

Mela answered, " I guess you better not /" with a
laugh so significant that he could not help his infer
ences concerning both Christine's absorption in the per
son she was talking with and the habitual violence of
her temper. He made note of how Mela helplessly
spoke of all her family by their names, as if he were
already intimate with them ; he fancied that if he could
get that in skilfully, it would be a valuable color in
his study; the English lord whom she should astonish
with it began to form himself out of the dramatic
nebulosity in his mind, and to whirl on a definite
orbit in American society. But he was puzzled to de
cide whether Mela's willingness to take him into her
confidence on short notice was typical or personal: the
trait of a daughter of the natural-gas millionaire, or
a foible of her own.

Beaton talked with Christine the greater part of the
evening that was left after the concert. He was very
grave, and took the tone of a fatherly friend ; he spoke
guardedly of the people present, and moderated the
severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks
and costumes. He did this out of a sort of unreasoned
allegiance to Margaret, whom he was in the mood of
wishing to please by being very kind and good, as she

always was. He had the sense also of atoning by this

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

behavior for some reckless tilings he had said before
that to Christine; he put on a sad, reproving air
with her, and gave her the feeling of being held in
check.

She chafed at it, and said, glancing at Margaret in
talk with her brother, " I don't think Miss Vance is
so very pretty, do you ?"

" I never think whether she's pretty or not," said
Beaton, with dreamy affectation. u She is merely per
fect. Does she know your brother ?"

" So she says. I didn't suppose Conrad ever went
anywhere, except to tenement-houses."

" It might have been there," Beaton suggested.
" She goes among friendless people everywhere."

" Maybe that's the reason she came to see us!" said
Christine.

Beaton looked at her with his smouldering eyes, and
felt the wish to say, " Yes, it was exactly that," but he
only allowed himself to deny the possibility of any such
motive in that case. He added: "I am so glad you
know her, Miss Dryfoos. I never met Miss Vance
without feeling myself better and truer, somehow; or
the wish to be so."

" And you think we might be improved, too ?" Chris
tine retorted. " Well, I must say you're not very flat
tering, Mr. Beaton, anyway."

Beaton would have liked to answer her according to
her cattishness, with a good clawing sarcasm that would
leave its smart in her pride; but he was being good,
and he could not change all at once. Besides, the girl's
attitude under the social honor done her interested him.
He was sure she had never been in such good com
pany before, but he could see that she was not in the
least affected by the experience. He had told her who
this person and that was; and he saw she had under-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

stood that the names were of consequence; but she,
seemed to feel her equality with them all. Her serenity
was not obviously akin to the savage stoicism in which
Beaton hid his own consciousness of social inferiority ;
but having won his way in the world so far by his
talent, his personal quality, he did not conceive the
simple fact in her case. Christine^ was self-possessed
because she felt that a knowledge of her father's fort
une had got around, and she had the peace which
money gives to ignorance; but Beaton attributed her
poise to indifference to social values. This, while he
inwardly sneered at it, avenged him upon his own too
keen sense of them, and, together with his temporary
allegiance to Margaret's goodness, kept him from re
taliating Christine's vulgarity. He said, " I don't see
how that could be," and left the question of flattery to
settle itself.

The people began to go away, following each other
up to take leave of Mrs. Horn. Christine watched
them with unconcern, and either because she would
not be governed by the general movement, or because
she liked being with Beaton, gave no sign of going.
Mela was still talking to the student of human nature,
sending out her laugh in deep gurgles amid the unim
aginable confidences she was making him about herself,
her family, the staff of Every Other Week, Mrs. Man-
del, and the kind of life they had all led before she
came to them. He was not a blind devotee of art for
art's sake, and though he felt that if one could portray
Mela just as she was she would be the richest possible
material, he was rather ashamed to know some of the
things she told him; and he kept looking anxiously
about for a chance of escape. The company had re
duced itself to the Dryfoos groups and some friends of
Mrs. Horn's who had the right to linger, when Mar-

A HAZAKD OE NEW FOKTUNES

garet crossed the room with Conrad to Christine and
Beaton.

" I'm so glad, Miss Dryfoos, to find that I was not
quite a stranger to you all when I ventured to call,
the other day. Your brother and I are rather old ac
quaintances, though I never knew who he was before.
I don't know just how to say we met where he is
valued so much. I suppose I mustn't try to say how
much," she added, with a look of deep regard at him.

Conrad blushed and stood folding his arms tight
over his breast, while his sister received Margaret's
confession with the suspicion which was her first feel
ing in regard to any new thing. What she concluded
was that this girl was trying to get in with them, for
reasons of her own. She said : " Yes ; it's the first
/ ever heard of his knowing you. He's so much
taken up with his meetings, he didn't want to come
to-night."

Margaret drew in her lip before she answered, with
out apparent resentment of the awkwardness or un
graciousness, whichever she found it : " I don't wonder !
You become so absorbed in such work that you think
nothing else is worth while. But I'm glad Mr. Dry
foos could come with you; I'm so glad you could all
come; I knew you would enjoy the music. Do sit
down — "

" No," said Christine, bluntly ; " we must be going.
Mela !" she called out, " come !"

The last group about Mrs. Horn looked round, but
Christine advanced upon them undismayed, and took
the hand Mrs. Horn promptly gave her. " Well, I
must bid you good-night."

" Oh, good-night," murmured the elder lady. " So
very kind of you to come."

" I've had the best kind of a time," said Mela,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

cordially. " I hain't laughed so much, I don't know
when."

" Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it," said Mrs. Horn, in
the same polite murmur she had used with Christine;
but she said nothing to either sister about any future
meeting.

They were apparently not troubled. Mela said over
her shoulder to the student of human nature, " The
next time I see you I'll give it to you for what you
said about Moffitt."

Margaret made some entreating paces after them,
but she did not succeed in covering the retreat of the
sisters against critical conjecture. She could only say
to Conrad, as if recurring to the subject, " I hope we
can get our friends to play for us some night. I know
it isn't any real help, but such things take the poor
creatures out of themselves for the time being, don't
you think?"

" Oh yes," he answered. " They're good in that
way." He turned back hesitatingly to Mrs. Horn, and
said, with a blush, " I thank you for a happy evening."

" Oh, I am very glad," she replied, in her murmur.

One of the old friends of the house arched her eye
brows in saying good-night, and offered the two young
men remaining seats home in her carriage. Beaton
gloomily refused, and she kept herself from asking the
student of human nature, till she had got him into
her carriage, " AVhat is Moffitt, and what did you say
about it?"

" Now you see, Margaret," said Mrs. Horn, with
bated triumph, when the people were all gone.

" Yes, I see," the girl consented. " From one point
of view, of course it's been a failure. I don't think
we've given Miss Dryfoos a pleasure, but perhaps no-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

body could. And at least we've given her the oppor
tunity of enjoying herself."

" Such people," said Mrs. Horn, philosophically,
" people with their money, must of course be received
sooner or later. You can't keep them out. Only, I
believe I would rather let some one else begin with
them. The Leightons didn't come ?"

" I sent them cards. I couldn't call again."

Mrs. Horn sighed a little. " I suppose Mr. Dryfoos
is one of your fellow-philanthropists?"

" He's one of the workers," said Margaret. " I met
him several times at the Hall, but I only knew his
first name. I think he's a great friend of Father
Benedict; he seems devoted to the work. Don't you
think he looks good?"

" Very," said Mrs. Horn, with a color of censure in
her assent. " The younger girl seemed more amiable
than her sister. But what manners !"

"Dreadful!" said Margaret, with knit brows, and
a pursed mouth of humorous suffering. " But she ap
peared to feel very much at home."

" Oh, as to that, neither of them was much abashed.
Do you suppose Mr. Beaton gave the other one some
hints for that quaint dress of hers? I don't imagine
that black and lace is her own invention. She seems
to have some sort of strange fascination for him."

" She's very picturesque," Margaret explained. " And
artists see points in people that the rest of us don't."

" Could it be her money ?" Mrs. Horn insinuated.
" He must be very poor."

" But he isn't base," retorted the girl, with a gen
erous indignation that made her aunt smile.

" Oh no ; but if he fancies her so picturesque, it
doesn't follow that he would object to her being rich."

" It would with a man like Mr. Beaton !"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" You are an idealist, Margaret. I suppose your
Mr. March has some disinterested motive in paying
court to Miss Mela — Pamela, I suppose, is her name.
He talked to her longer than her literature would have
lasted."

" He seems a very kind person," said Margaret.

" And Mr. Dryfoos pays his salary ?"

" I don't know anything about that. But that
wouldn't make any difference with him."

Mrs. Horn laughed out at this security; but she
was not displeased by the nobleness which it came
from. She liked Margaret to be high-minded, and
was really not distressed by any good that was in her.

The Marches walked home, both because it was not
far, and because they must spare in carriage hire at
any rate. As soon as they were out of the house, she
applied a point of conscience to him.

" I don't see how you could talk to that girl so long,
Basil, and make her laugh so."

" Why, there seemed no one else to do it, till I
thought of Kendricks."

" Yes, but I kept thinking, Now he's pleasant to
her because he thinks it's to his interest. If she had
no relation to Every Other Week, he wouldn't waste
his time on her."

" Isabel," March complained, " I wish you wouldn't
think of me in lie, him, and his; I never personalize
you in my thoughts: you remain always a vague un-
indivi dualized essence, not quite without form and
void, but nounless and pronounless. I call that a much
more beautiful mental attitude toward the object of
one's affections. But if you must he and him and
his me in your thoughts, I wish you'd have more kind
ly thoughts of me."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Do you deny that it's true, Basil ?"

" Do you believe that it's true, Isabel ?"

" No matter. But could you excuse it if it were 2"

" Ah, I see you'd have been capable of it in my
place, and you're ashamed."

" Yes," sighed the wife, " I'm afraid that I should.
But tell me that you wouldn't, Basil !"

" I can tell you that I wasn't. But I suppose that
in a real exigency, I could truckle to the proprietary
Dryfooses as well as you."

" Oh no ; you mustn't, dear ! I'm a woman, and
I'm dreadfully afraid. But you must always be a
man, especially with that horrid old Mr. Dryfoos.
Promise me that you'll never yield the least point,
to him in a matter of right and wrong!"

" ISot if he's right and I'm wrong I"

" Don't trifle, dear ! You know what I mean. Will
you promise ?"

" I'll promise to submit the point to you, and let
you do the yielding. As for me, I shall be adamant.
Nothing I like better."

" They're dreadful, even that poor, good young fel
low, who's so different from all the rest; he's awful,
too, because you feel that he's a martyr to them."

" And I never did like martyrs a great deal," March
interposed.

" I wonder how they came to be there," Mrs. March
pursued, unmindful of his joke.

" That is exactly what seemed to be puzzling Miss
Mela about us. She asked, and I explained as well as
I could; and then she told me that Miss Vance had
come to call on them and invited them; and first they
didn't know how they could come till they thought of
making Conrad bring them. But she didn't say why
Miss Vance called on them. Mr. Dryfoos doesn't em-

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ploy her on Every Other Week. But I suppose she has
her own vile little motive."

" It can't be their money; it can't be 1" sighed Mrs.
March.

" Well, I don't know. We all respect money."

" Yes, but Miss Vance's position is so secure. She
needn't pay court to those stupid, vulgar people."

" Well, let's console ourselves with the belief that
she would, if she needed. Such people as the Dry-
fooses are the raw material of good society. It isn't
made up of refined or meritorious people — professors
anH litterateurs, ministers and musicians, and their
families. All the fashionable people there to-night.
were likeTTie Dryfooses a generation or two ago. I
dare say the material works up faster now, and in a
season or two you won't know the Dryfooses from the
other plutocrats. They will — a little better than they
do now; they'll see a difference, but nothing radical,
nothing painful. People who get up in the world by
service to others — through letters, or art, or science —
may have their modest little misgivings as to their so
cial value, but people that rise by money — especially if
their gains are sudden — never have. And that's the
kind of people that form our nobility; there's no use
pretending that we haven't a nobility; we might as
well pretend we haven't first-class cars in the presence
of a vestibuled Pullman. Those girls had no more
doubt of their right to be there than if they had been
duchesses: we thought it was very nice of Miss Vance
to come and ask us, but they didn't; they weren't
afraid, or the least embarrassed; they were perfectly
natural — like born aristocrats. And you may be sure
that if the plutocracy that now owns the country ever
sees fit to take on the outward signs of an aristocracy
— titles, and arms, and ancestors — it won't falter from

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any inherent question of its worth. Money prizes and
honors itself, and if there is anything it hasn't got, it
believes it can buy it."

" Well, Basil," said his wife, " I hope you won't
get infected with Lindau's ideas of rich people. Some
of them are very good and kind."

" Who denies that ? Not even Lindau himself. It's
all right. And the great thing is that the evening's
enjoyment is over. I've got my society smile off, and
I'm radiantly happy. Go on with your little pessi
mistic diatribes, Isabel; you can't spoil my pleasure."

" I could see," said Mela, as she and Christine drove
home together, " that she was as jealous as she could
be, all the time you was talkun' to Mr. Beaton. She
pretended to be talkun' to Conrad, but she kep' her eye
on you pretty close, I can tell you. I bet she just got
us there to see how him and you would act together.
And I reckon she was satisfied. He's dead gone on
you, Chris."

Christine listened with a dreamy pleasure to the
flatteries with which Mela plied her in the hope of
some return in kind, and not at all because she felt
spitefully toward Miss Vance, or in anywise wished
her ill. " Who was that fellow with you so long ?"
asked Christine. " I suppose you turned yourself in
side out to him, like you always do."

Mela was transported by the cruel ingratitude.
" It's a lie ! I didn't tell him a single thing."

Conrad walked home, choosing to do so because he
did not wish to hear his sisters' talk of the evening,
and because there was a tumult in his spirit which
he wished to let have its way. In his life with its
single purpose, defeated by stronger wills than his own,

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and now struggling partially to fulfil itself in acts of
devotion to others, the thought of women had entered
scarcely more than in that of a child. His ideals were
of a virginal vagueness; faces, voices, gestures had
filled his fancy at times, but almost passionately ; and
the sensation that he now indulged was a kind of wor
ship, ardent, but reverent and exalted. The brutal ex
periences of the world make us forget that there are
such natures in it, and that they seem to come up out
of the lowly earth as well as down from the high
heaven. In the heart of this man well on toward thirty
there had never been left the stain of a base thought;
not that suggestion and conjecture had not visited him,
but that he had not entertained them, or in anywise
made them his. In a Catholic age and country, he
would have been one of those monks who are sainted
after death for the angelic purity of their lives, and
whose names are invoked by believers in moments of
trial, like San Luigi Gonzaga. As he now walked
along thinking, with a lover's beatified smile on his
face, of how Margaret Vance had spoken and looked,
he dramatized scenes in which he approved himself to
her by acts of goodness and unselfishness, and died to
please her for the sake of others. He made her praise
him for them, to his face, when he disclaimed their
merit, and after his death, when he could not. All the
time he was poignantly sensible of her grace, her ele
gance, her style; they seemed to intoxicate him; some
tones of her voice thrilled through his nerves, and some
looks turned his brain with a delicious, swooning sense
of her beauty; her refinement bewildered him. But
all this did not admit the idea of possession, even of
aspiration. At the most his worship only set her be
yond the love of other men as far as beyond his own.

PART FOURTH

NOT long after Lent, Fulkerson set before Dryfoos
one day his scheme for a dinner in celebration of the
success of Every Other Week. Dryfoos had never med
dled in any mariner with the conduct of the periodical ;
but Fulkerson easily saw that he was proud of his re
lation to it, and he proceeded upon the theory that he
would be willing to have this relation known. On the
days when he had been lucky in stocks, he was apt to
drop in at the office on Eleventh Street, on his way
up-town, and listen to Fulkerson's talk. He was on
good enough terms with March, who revised his first
impressions of the man, but they had not much to say
to each other, and it seemed to March that Dryfoos
was even a little afraid of him, as of a piece of mechan
ism he had acquired, but did not quite understand ; he
left the working of it to Fulkerson, who no doubt
bragged of it sufficiently. The old man seemed to
have as little to say to his son; he shut himself up
with Fulkerson, where the others could hear the man
ager begin and go on with an unstinted flow of talk
about Every Other Week; for Fulkerson never talked
of anything else if he could help it, and was always
bringing the conversation back to it if it strayed.

The day he spoke of the dinner he rose and called
from his door : " March, I say, come down here a min
ute, will you? Conrad, I want you, too."

The editor and the publisher found the manager and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

the proprietor seated on opposite sides of the table.
" It's about those funeral baked meats, you know,"
Fulkerson explained, " and I was trying to give Mr.
Dryfoos some idea of what we wanted to do. That
is, what I wanted to do," he continued, turning from
March to Dryfoos. " March, here, is opposed to it, of
course. He'd like to publish Every Oilier Week on
the sly; keep it out of the papers, and off the news
stands; he's a modest Boston petunia, and he shrinks
from publicity; but I am not that kind of herb my
self, and I want all the publicity we can get — beg,
borrow, or steal — for this thing. I say that you can't
work the sacred rites of hospitality in a better cause,
and what I propose is a little dinner for the purpose
of recognizing the hit we've made with this thing. My
idea was to strike you for the necessary funds, and do
the thing on a handsome scale. The term little dinner
is a mere figure of speech. A little dinner wouldn't
make a big talk, and what we want is the big talk, at
present, if we don't lay up a cent. My notion was
that pretty soon after Lent, now, when everybody is
feeling just right, we should begin to send out our
paragraphs, affirmative, negative, and explanatory, and
along about the first of May we should sit down about
a hundred strong, the most distinguished people in the
country, and solemnize our triumph. There it is in
a nutshell. I might expand and I might expound, but
that's the sum and substance of it."

Fulkerson stopped, and ran his eyes eagerly over
the faces of his three listeners, one after the other.
March was a little surprised when Dryfoos turned
to him, but that reference of the question seemed to
give Fulkerson particular pleasure : " What do you
think, Mr. March?"

The editor leaned back in his chair. " I don't pre-
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tend to have Mr. Fulkerson's genius for advertising;
but it seems to me a little early yet. We might cele
brate later when we've got more to celebrate. At pres
ent we're a pleasing novelty, rather than a fixed fact/7

" Ah, you don't get the idea !" said Fulkerson.
" What we want to do with this dinner is to fix the
fact."

" Am I going to come in anywhere ?" the old man
interrupted.

" You're going to come in at the head of the pro
cession ! We are going to strike everything that is im
aginative and romantic in the newspaper soul with you
and your history and your fancy for going in for this
thing. I can start you in a paragraph that will travel
through all the newspapers, from Maine to Texas and
from Alaska to Florida. We have had all sorts of rich
men backing up literary enterprises, but the natural-
gas man in literature is a new thing, and the com
bination of your picturesque past and your aesthetic
present is something that will knock out the sym
pathies of the American public the first round. I
feel," said Fulkerson, with a tremor of pathos in his
voice, " that Every Oilier Week is at a disadvantage
before the public as long as it's supposed to be my
enterprise, my idea. As far as I'm known at all, I'm
known simply as a syndicate man, and nobody in the
press believes that I've got the money to run the thing
on a grand scale; a suspicion of insolvency must at
tach to it sooner or later, and the fellows on the press
will work up that impression, sooner or later, if we
don't give them something else to work up. Now, as
soon as I begin to give it away to the correspondents
that you re in it, with your imtold millions — that, in
fact, it was your idea from the start, that you orig
inated it to give full play to the humanitarian ten-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

dencies of Conrad here, who's always had these theories
of co-operation, and longed to realize them for the bene
fit of our struggling young writers and artists —

March had listened with growing amusement to the
mingled burlesque and earnest of Fulkerson's self-
sacrificing impudence, and with wonder as to how far
Dryfoos was consenting to his preposterous proposi
tion, when Conrad broke out : " Mr. Fulkerson, I could
not allow you to do that. It would not be true ; I did
not wish to be here; and — and what I think — what I
wish to do — that is something I will not let any one
put me in a false position about. No!" The blood
rushed into the young man's gentle face, and he met
his father's glance with defiance.

Dryfoos turned from him to Fulkerson without
speaking, and Fulkerson said, caressingly : " Why, of
course, Coonrod ! I know how you feel, and I shouldn't
let anything of that sort go out uncontradicted after-
ward. But there isn't anything in these times that
would give us better standing with the public than
some hint of the way you feel about such things. The
public expects to be interested, and nothing would in
terest it more than to be told that the success of Every
Oilier Week sprang from the first application of the
principle of Live and let Liv-e to a literary enterprise.
It would look particularly well, coming from you and
your father, but if you object, we can leave that part
out; though if you approve of the principle I don't
see why you need object. The main thing is to let the
public know that it owes this thing to the liberal and
enlightened spirit of one of the foremost capitalists of
the country, and that his purposes are not likely to be
betrayed in the hands of his son. I should get a little
cut made from a photograph of your father, and sup
ply it gratis with the paragraphs."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I guess," said the old man, " we will get along
without the cut."

Fulkerson laughed. " Well, well ! Have it your
own way. But the sight of your face in the patent
outsides of the country press would be worth half a
dozen subscribers in every school district throughout the
length and breadth of this fair land."

" There was a fellow," Dryfoos explained, in an
aside to March, " that was getting up a history of
Moffitt, and he asked me to let him put a steel en
graving of me in. He said a good many prominent
citizens were going to have theirs in, and his price was
a hundred and fifty dollars. I told him I couldn't let
mine go for less than two hundred, and when he said
he could give me a splendid plate for that money, I
said I should want it cash. You never saw a fellow
more astonished when he got it through him that I
expected him to pay the two hundred."

Fulkerson laughed in keen appreciation of the joke.
" Well, sir, I guess Every Other Week will pay you
that much. But if you won't sell at any price, all
right; we must try to worry along without the light
of your countenance on the posters, but we got to have
it for the banquet."

" I don't seem to feel very hungry, yet," said the
old man, dryly.

" Oh, I'appetit vient en mangeant, as our French
friends say. You'll be hungry enough when you see
the preliminary Little Neck clam. It's too late for
oysters."

" Doesn't that fact seem to point to a postponement
till they get back, sometime in October," March sug
gested.

" N"o, no !" said Fulkerson, " you don't catch on
to the business end of this thing, my friends. You're

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proceeding on something like the old exploded idea
that the demand creates the supply, when everybody
knows, if he's watched the course of modern events,
that it's just as apt to be the other way. I contend
that we've got a real substantial success to celebrate
now; but even if we hadn't, the celebration would do
more than anything else to create the success, if we got
it properly before the public. People will say: Those
fellows are not fools ; they wouldn't go and rejoice over
their magazine unless they had got a big thing in it.
And the state of feeling we should produce in the
public mind would make a boom of perfectly unprece
dented grandeur for E. 0. W. Heigh ?"

He looked sunnily from one to the other in suc
cession. The elder Dryfoos said, with his chin on the
top of his stick, " I reckon those Little Neck clams
will keep."

" Well, just as you say," Fulkerson cheerfully as
sented. " I understand you to agree to the general
principle of a little dinner?"

" The smaller the better," said the old man.

" Well, I say a little dinner because the idea of that
seems to cover the case, even if we vary the plan a
little. I had thought of a reception, maybe, that would
include the lady contributors and artists, and the wives
and daughters of the other contributors. That would
give us the chance to ring in a lot of society corre
spondents and get the thing written up in first-class
shape. 'Bj-ihe-way /" cried Fulkerson, slapping him
self on the leg, " why not have the dinner and the
reception both?"

" I don't understand," said Dryfoos.

" Why, have a select little dinner for ten or twenty
choice spirits of the male persuasion, and then, about

ten o'clock, throw open your palatial drawing-rooms

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and admit the females to champagne, salads, and ices.
It is the very thing ! Come !"

" What do you think of it, Mr. March ?" asked Dry-
foos, on whose social inexperience Fulkerson's words
projected no very intelligible image, and who perhaps
hoped for some more light.

" It's a beautiful vision," said March, " and if it
will take more time to realize it I think I approve.
I approve of anything that will delay Mr. Fulkerson's
advertising orgie."

" Then," Fulkerson pursued, " we could have the
pleasure of Miss Christine and Miss Mela's company;
and maybe Mrs. Dryfoos would look in on us in the
course of the evening. There's no hurry, as Mr. March
suggests, if we can give the thing this shape. I will
cheerfully adopt the idea of my honorable colleague."

March laughed at his impudence, but at heart he
was ashamed of Fulkerson for proposing to make use
of Dryfoos and his house in that way. He fancied
something appealing in the look that the old man turn
ed on him, and something indignant in Conrad's flush ;
but probably this was only his fancy. He reflected that
neither of them could feel it as people of more worldly
knowledge would, and he consoled himself with the
fact that Fulkerson was really not such a charlatan as
he seemed. But it went through his mind that this was
a strange end for all Dryfoos's money-making to come
to ; and he philosophically accepted the fact of his own
humble fortunes when he reflected how little his money
could buy for such a man. It was an honorable use
that Fulkerson was putting it to in Every Other Week;
it might be far more creditably spent on such an en
terprise than on horses, or wines, or women, the usual
resources of the brute rich ; and if it were to be lost, it

might better fee lost that way than in stocks. He kept

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

a smiling face turned to Dryfoos while these irreverent
considerations occupied him, and hardened his heart
against father and son and their possible emotions.

The old man rose to put an end to the interview.
He only repeated, " I guess those clams will keep till
fall."

But Fulkerson was apparently satisfied with the
progress he had made ; and Avhen he joined March
for the stroll homeward after office hours, he was able
to detach his mind from the subject, as if content to
leave it.

" This is about the best part of the year in New
York," he said. In some of the areas the grass had
sprouted, and the tender young foliage had loosened
itself from the buds on a sidewalk tree here and there ;
the soft air was full of spring, and the delicate sky,
far aloof, had the look it never wears at any other
season. " It ain't a time of year to complain much of,
anywhere; but I don't want anything better than the
month of May in New York. Farther South it's too
hot, and I've been in Boston in May when that east
wind of yours made every nerve in my body get up and
howl. I reckon the weather has a good deal to do with
the local temperament. The reason a New York man
takes life so easily with all his rush is that his climate
don't worry him. But a Boston man must be rasped
the whole while by the edge in his air. That accounts
for his sharpness ; and when he's lived through twenty-
five or thirty Boston Mays, he gets to thinking that
Providence has some particular use for him, or he
wouldn't have survived, and that makes him conceited.
See ?"

" I see," said March. " But I don't know how
you're going to work that idea into an advertisement,
exactly."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, pshaw, now, March ! You don't think I've
got that on the brain all the time ?"

" You were gradually leading up to Every Other
Week, somehow."

" No, sir ; I wasn't. I was just thinking what
a different creature a Massachusetts man is from a
Virginian. And yet I suppose they're both as pure
English stock as you'll get anywhere in America.
March, I think Colonel Woodburn's paper is going
to make a hit."

" You've got there ! When it knocks down the sale
about one-half, I shall know it's made a hit."

" I'm not afraid," said Fulkerson. " That thing is
going to attract attention. It's well written — you can
take the pomposity out of it, here and there — and it's
novel. Our people like a bold strike, and it's going to
shake them up tremendously to have serfdom advocated
on high moral grounds as the only solution of the labor
problem. You see, in the first place, he goes for their
sympathies by the way he portrays the actual relations
of capital and labor; he shows how things have got to
go from bad to worse, and then he trots out his little
old hobby, and proves that if slavery had not been in
terfered with, it would have perfected itself in the
interest of humanity. He makes a pretty strong plea
for it."

March threw back his head and laughed. " He's
converted you ! I swear, Fulkerson, if we had ac
cepted and paid for an article advocating cannibalism
as the only resource for getting rid of the superfluous
poor, you'd begin to believe in it."

Fulkerson smiled in approval of the joke, and only
said : " I wish you could meet the colonel in the privacy
of the domestic circle, March. You'd like him. He's
a splendid old fellow ; regular type. Talk about spring !

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

You ought to see the widow's little back yard these
days. You know that glass gallery just beyond the
dining-room ? Those girls have got the pot-plants out
of that, and a lot more, and they've turned the edges
of that back yard, along the fence, into a regular bower ;
they've got sweet peas planted, and nasturtiums, and
we shall be in a blaze of glory about the beginning of
eTune. Fun to see 7em work in the garden, and the
bird bossing the job in his cage under the cherry-tree.
Have to keep the middle of the yard for the clothes
line, but six days in the week it's a lawn, and I go
over it with a mower myself. March, there ain't any
thing like a home, is there ? Dear little cot of your
own, heigh? I tell you, March, when I get to push
ing that mower round, and the colonel is smoking his
cigar in the gallery, and those girls are pottering over
the flowers, one of these soft evenings after dinner, I
feel like a human being. Yes, I do. I struck it rich
when I concluded to take my meals at the widow's.
For eight dollars a week I get good board, refined
society, and all the advantages of a Christian home.
By-the-way, you've never had much talk with Miss
Woodburn, have you, March?"

" Not so much as with Miss Woodburn's father."

" Well, he is rather apt to scoop the conversation.
I must draw his fire, sometime, when you and Mrs.
March are around, and get you a chance with Miss
Woodburn."

" I should like that better, T believe," said March.

" Well, I shouldn't wonder if you did. Curious,
but Miss Woodburn isn't at all your idea of a South
ern girl. She's got lots of go; she's never idle a min
ute; she keeps the old gentleman in first-class shape,
and she don't believe a bit in the slavery solution of the
labor problem; says she's glad it's gone, and if it's

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

anything like the effects of it, she's glad it went be
fore her time. No, sir, she's as full of snap as the
liveliest kind of a Northern girl. None of that sunny
Southern languor you read about."

" I suppose the typical Southerner, like the typical
anything else, is pretty difficult to find," said March.
" But perhaps Miss Woodburn represents the new
South. The modern conditions must be producing a
modern type."

" Well, that's what she and the colonel both say.
They say there ain't anything left of that Walter
Scott dignity and chivalry in the rising generation;
takes too much time. You ought to see her sketch
the old-school, high-and-mighty manners, as they sur
vive among some of the antiques in Charlottesburg.
If that thing could be put upon the stage it would
be a killing success. Makes the old gentleman laugh
in spite of himself. But he's as proud of her as Punch,
anyway. Why don't you and Mrs. March come round
oftener ? Look here ! How would it do to have a
little excursion, somewhere, after the spring fairly gets
in its work ?"

" Reporters present ?"

" No, no ! Nothing of that kind ; perfectly sincere
and dinterested enjoyment."

" Oh, a few handbills to be scattered around : ' Buy
Ev-ery Other Week? i Look out for the next number
of Every Other Week? l Every Other Week at all the
news-stands.' Well, I'll talk it over with Mrs. March.
I suppose there's no great hurry."

March told his wife of the idyllic mood in which
he had left Fulkerson at the widow's door, and she
said he must be in love.

" Why, of course ! I wonder I didn't think of that.
But Fulkerson is such an impartial admirer of the.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

whole sex that you can't think of his liking one more
than another. I don't know that he showed any un
just partiality, though, in his talk of ' those girls,' as
he called them. And I always rather fancied that
Mrs. Mandel — he's done so much for her, you know;
and she is such a well-balanced, well-preserved person,
and so lady-like and correct — "

" Fulkerson had the word for her : academic. She's
everything that instruction and discipline can make of
a woman; but I shouldn't think they could make
enough of her to be in love with."

" Well, I don't know. The academic has its charm.
There are moods in which I could imagine myself in
love with an academic person. That regularity of line ;
that reasoned strictness of contour; that neatness of
pose ; that slightly conventional but harmonious group
ing of the emotions and morals — you can see how it
would have its charm, the Wedgwood in human nat
ure ? I wonder where Mrs. Mandel keeps her urn
and her willow."

" I should think she might have use for them in that
family, poor thing!" said Mrs. March.

" Ah, that reminds me," said her husband, " that we
had another talk with the old gentleman, this after
noon, about Fulkerson's literary, artistic, and adver
tising orgie, and it's postponed till October."

" The later the better, I should think," said Mrs.
March, who did not really think about it at all,
but whom the date fixed for it caused to think of
the intervening time. " We have got to consider
what we will do about the summer, before long,
Basil."

" Oh, not yet, not yet," he pleaded, with that man's
willingness to abide in the present, which is so trying
to a woman. " It's only the end of April."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" It will be the end of June before we know. And
these people wanting the Boston house another year
complicates it. We can't spend the summer there, as
we planned.'7

" They oughtn't to have offered us an increased rent ;
they have taken an advantage of us."

" I don't know that it matters," said Mrs. March.
" I had decided not to go there."

" Had you ? This is a surprise."

" Everything is a surprise to you, Basil, when it
happens."

" True ; I keep the world fresh, that way."

" It wouldn't have been any change to go from one
city to another for the summer. We might as well
have stayed in New York."

" Yes, I wish we had stayed," said March, idly
humoring a conception of the accomplished fact.
" Mrs. Green would have let us have the gimcrackery
very cheap for the summer months ; and we could have
made all sorts of nice little excursions and trips off,
and been twice as well as if we had spent the summer
away."

" Nonsense ! You know we couldn't spend the sum
mer in New York."

" I know / could."

" What stuff ! You couldn't manage."

" Oh yes, I could. I could take my meals at Ful-
kerson's widow's ; or at Maroni's, with poor old Lindau :
he's got to dining there again. Or, I could keep house,
and he could dine with me here."

There was a teasing look in March's eyes, and he
broke into a laugh, at the firmness with which his wife
said : " I think if there is to be any housekeeping, I
will stay, too; and help to look after it. I would try
not intrude upon you and your guest."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, we should be only too glad to have you join
us/' said March, playing with fire.

" Very well, then, I wish you would take him off
to Maroni's, the next time he comes to dine here !"
cried his wife.

The experiment of making March's old friend free
of his house had not given her all the pleasure that
so kind a thing ought to have afforded so good a woman.
She received Lindau at first with robust benevolence,
and the high resolve not to let any of his little pe
culiarities alienate her from a sense of his claim upon
her sympathy and gratitude, not only as a man who
had been so generously fond of her husband in his
youth, but a hero who had suffered for her country.
Her theory was that his mutilation must not be ig
nored, but must be kept in mind as a monument of
his sacrifice, and she fortified Bella with this con
ception, so that the child bravely sat next his maimed
arm at table and helped him to dishes he could not
reach, and cut up his meat for him. As for Mrs.
March herself, the thought of his mutilation made her
a little faint ; she was not without a bewildered resent
ment of its presence as a sort of oppression. She did
not like his drinking so much of March's beer, either;
it was no harm, but it was somehow unworthy, out of
character with a hero of the war. But what she really
could not reconcile herself to was the violence of Lin-
dau's sentiments concerning the whole political and
social fabric. She did not feel sure that he should be
allowed to say such things before the children, who
had been nurtured in the faith of Bunker Hill and
Appomattox, as the beginning and the end of all pos
sible progress in human rights. As a woman she was
naturally an aristocrat, but as an American she was
theoretically a democrat ; and it astounded, it alarmed

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

her, to hear American democracy denounced as a
shuffling evasion. She had never cared much for the
United States Senate, but she doubted if she ought to
sit by when it was railed at as a rich man's club. It
shocked her to be told that the rich and poor were not
equal before the law in a country where justice must
be paid for at every step in fees and costs, or where
a poor man must go to war in his own person, and a
rich man might hire some one to go in his. Mrs.
March felt that this rebellious mind in Lindau really
somehow outlawed him from sympathy, and retro
actively undid his past suffering for the country: she
had always particularly valued that provision of the
law, because in forecasting all the possible mischances
that might befall her own son, she had been comforted
by the thought that if there ever was another war, and
Tom were drafted, his father could buy him a sub
stitute. Compared with such blasphemy as this, Lin-
dau's declaration that there was not equality of op
portunity in America, and that fully one-half the people
were debarred their right to the pursuit of happiness by
the hopeless conditions of their lives, was flattering
praise. She could not listen to such things in silence,
though, and it did not help matters when Lindau met
her arguments with facts and reasons which she felt
she was merely not sufficiently instructed to combat,
and he was not quite gentlemanly to urge. " I am
afraid for the effect on the children," she said to her
husband. " Such perfectly distorted ideas — Tom will
be ruined by them."

" Oh, let Tom find out where they're false," said
March. " It will be good exercise for his faculties
of research. At any rate, those things are getting
said nowadays; he'll have to hear them sooner or
later."

23 339

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Had he better hear them at home ?" demanded his
wife.

" Why, you know, as you're here to refute them,
Isabel/' he teased, " perhaps it's the best place. But
don't mind poor old Lindau, my dear. He says him
self that his parg is worse than his pidte, you know."

" Ah, it's too late now to mind him," she sighed.
In a moment of rash good feeling, or perhaps an ex
alted conception of duty, she had herself proposed that
Lindau should come every week and read German with
Tom; and it had become a question first how they
could get him to take pay for it, and then how they
could get him to stop it. Mrs. March never ceased to
wonder at herself for having brought this about, for
she had warned her husband against making any en
gagement with Lindau which would bring him regular
ly to the house: the Germans stuck so, and were so
unscrupulously dependent. Yet, the deed being done,
she would not ignore the duty of hospitality, and it
was always she who made the old man stay to their
Sunday-evening tea when he lingered near the hour,
reading Schiller and Heine and Uhland with the boy,
in the clean shirt with which he observed the day;
Lindau's linen was not to be trusted during the week.
She now concluded a season of mournful reflection by
saying, " He will get you into trouble, somehow, Basil/'

" Well, I don't know how, exactly. I regard Lindau
as a political economist of an unusual type ; but I shall
not let him array me against the constituted authori
ties. Short of that, I think I am safe."

" Well, be careful, Basil ; be careful. You know
you are so rash."

" I suppose I may continue to pity him ? He is
such a poor, lonely old fellow. Are you really sorry
he's come into our lives, my dear?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FOBTUNES

" No, no ; not that. I feel as you do about it ; but
I wish I felt easier about him — sure, that is, that we're
not doing wrong to let him keep on talking so."

" I suspect we couldn't help it," March returned,
lightly. " It's one of what Lindau calls his ' brin-
cibles ' to say what he thinks."

II

THE Marches had no longer the gross appetite for
novelty which urges youth to a surfeit of strange
scenes, experiences, ideas ; and makes travel, with all
its annoyances and fatigues, an inexhaustible delight.
But there is no doubt that the chief pleasure of their
life in New York was from its quality of f oreignness :
the flavor of olives, which, once tasted, can never be
forgotten. The olives may not be of the first excellence ;
they may be a little stale, and small and poor, to be
gin with, but they are still olives, and the fond palate
craves them. The sort which grew in New York, on
lower Sixth Avenue and in the region of Jefferson
Market and on the soft exposures south of Washing
ton Square, were none the less acceptable because they
were of the commonest Italian variety.

The Marches spent a good deal of time and money
in a grocery of that nationality, where they found
all the patriotic comestibles and potables, and renewed
their faded Italian with the friendly family in charge.
Italian table cPhotes formed the adventure of the week,
on the day when Mrs. March let her domestics go out,
and went herself to dine abroad with her husband and
children; and they became adepts in the restaurants
where they were served, and which they varied almost
from dinner to dinner. The perfect decorum of these
places, and their immunity from offence in any, em
boldened the Marches to experiment in Spanish restau-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

rants, where red pepper and beans insisted in every
dinner, and where once they chanced upon a night of
olla podrida, with such appeals to March's memory of
a boyish ambition to taste the dish that he became
poetic and then pensive over its cabbage and carrots,
peas and bacon. For a rare combination of interna
tional motives they prized most the table d'hote of a
.French lady, who had taken a Spanish husband in a
second marriage, and had a Cuban negro for her cook,
with a cross-eyed Alsation for waiter, and a slim young
South-American for cashier. March held that some
thing of the catholic character of these relations ex
pressed itself in the generous and tolerant variety of
the dinner, which was singularly abundant for fifty
cents, without wine. At one very neat French place
he got a dinner at the same price with wine, but it was
not so abundant; and March inquired in fruitless
speculation why the table d'hote of the Italians, a
notoriously frugal and abstemious people, should be
usually more than you wanted at seventy-five cents
and a dollar, and that of the French rather less at
half a dollar. He could not see that the frequenters
were greatly different at the different places ; they were
mostly Americans, of subdued manners and conjectur-
ably subdued fortunes, with here and there a table full
of foreigners. There was no noise and not much smok
ing anywhere; March liked going to that neat French
place because there Madame sat enthroned and high
behind a comptoir at one side of the room, and every
body saluted her in going out. It was there that a
gentle-looking young couple used to dine, in whom the
Marches became effectlessly interested, because they
Ihought they looked like that when they were young.
The wife had an aesthetic dress, and defined her

pretty head by wearing her back-hair pulled up very

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

tight under her bonnet; the husband had dreamy eyes
set wide apart under a pure forehead. " They are
artists, August, I think," March suggested to the
waiter, when lie had vainly asked about them. " Oh,
hartis, cedenly," August consented; but Heaven knows
whether they were, or what they were: March never
learned.

This immunity from acquaintance, this touch-and-
go quality in their New York sojourn, this almost loss
of individuality at times, after the intense identifica
tion of their Boston life, was a relief, though Mrs.
March had her misgivings, and questioned whether it
were not perhaps too relaxing to the moral fibre.
March refused to explore his conscience ; he allowed
that it might be so ; but he said he liked now and then
to feel his personality in that state of solution. They
went and sat a good deal in the softening evenings
among the infants and dotards of Latin extraction in
Washington Square, safe from all who ever knew them,
and enjoyed the advancing season, which thickened the
foliage of the trees and flattered out of sight the church
warden's Gothic of the University Building. The in
fants were sometimes cross, and cried in their weary
mothers' or little sisters' arms; but they did not dis
turb the dotards, who slept, some with their heads
fallen forward, and some with their heads fallen back ;
March arbitrarily distinguished those with the droop
ing faces as tipsy and ashamed to confront the public.
The small Italian children raced Tip and down the
asphalt paths, playing American games of tag and hide-
and-whoop ; larger boys passed ball, in training for po
tential championships. The Marches sat and mused, or
quarrelled fitfully about where they should spend the
summer, like sparrows, he once said, till the electric
lights began to show distinctly among the leaves, and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they looked round and found the infants and dotards
gone and the benches filled with lovers. That was the
signal for the Marches to go home. He said that the
spectacle of so much courtship as the eye might take
in there at a glance was not, perhaps, oppressive, but
the thought that at the same hour the same thing was
going on all over the country, wherever two young
fools could get together, was more than he could bear;
he did not deny that it was natural, and, in a measure,
authorized, but he declared that it was hackneyed ; and
the fact that it must go on forever, as long as the race
lasted, made him tired.

At home, generally, they found that the children had
not missed them, and were perfectly safe. It was one
of the advantages of a flat that they could leave the
children there whenever they liked without anxiety.
They liked better staying there than wandering about
in the evening with their parents, whose excursions
seemed to them somewhat aimless, and their pleasures
insipid. They studied, or read, or looked out of the
window at the street sights; and their mother always
came back to them with a pang for their lonesomeness.
Bella knew some little girls in the house, but in a
ceremonious way; Tom had formed no friendships
among the boys at school such as he had left in Bos
ton; as nearly as he could explain, the New York fel
lows carried canes at an age when they would have had
them broken for them by the other boys at Boston ; and
they were both sissyish and fast. It was probably
prejudice; he never could say exactly what their de
merits were, and neither he nor Bella was apparently
so homesick as they pretended, though they answered
inquirers, the one that New York \vas a hole, and the
other that it was horrid, and that all they lived for
was to get back to Boston. In the mean time they

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

were thrown much upon each other for society, which
March said was well for both of them; he did not
mind their cultivating a little gloom and the sense of
a common wrong; it made them better comrades, and
it was providing them with amusing reminiscences for
the future. They really enjoyed Bohemianizing in
that harmless way: though Tom had his doubts of its
respectability ; he was very punctilious about his sister,
and went round from his own school every day to fetch
her home from hers. The whole family went to the
theatre a good deal, and enjoyed themselves together in
their desultory explorations of the city.

They lived near Greenwich \7illage, and March liked
strolling through its quaintness toward the waterside
on a Sunday, when a hereditary Sabbatarianism kept
his wife at home; he made her observe that it even
kept her at home from church. He found a lingering
quality of pure Americanism in the region, and he
said the very bells called to worship in a nasal tone.
He liked the streets of small brick houses, with here
and there one painted red, and the mortar lines picked
out in white, and with now and then a fine wooden
portal of fluted pillars and a bowed transom. The
rear of the tenement - houses showed him the pictu-
resqueness of clothes - lines fluttering far aloft, as in
Florence ; and the new apartment-houses, breaking the
old sky-line with their towering stories, implied a life
as alien to the American manner as anything in con
tinental Europe. In fact, foreign faces and foreign
tongues prevailed in Greenwich Village, but no longer
German or even Irish tongues or faces. The eyes and
earrings of Italians twinkled in and out of the alley
ways and basements, and they seemed to abound even
in the streets, where long ranks of trucks drawn up
in Sunday rest alone: the curbstones suggested the pres-

346

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ence of a race of sturdier strength than theirs. March
liked the swarthy, strange visages; he found nothing
menacing for the future in them; for wickedness he
had to satisfy himself as he could with the sneering,
insolent, clean-shaven mug of some rare American of
the b'hoy type, now almost as extinct in New York as
the dodo or the volunteer fireman. When he had found
his way, among the ash-barrels and the groups of de
cently dressed church-goers, to the docks, he experi
enced a sufficient excitement in the recent arrival of
a French steamer, whose sheds were thronged with
hacks and express-wagons, and in a tacit inquiry into
the emotions of the passengers, fresh from the cleanli
ness of Paris, and now driving up through the filth of
those streets.

Some of the streets were filthier than others; there
was at least a choice; there were boxes and barrels of
kitchen offal on all the sidewalks, but not everywhere
manure-heaps, and in some places the stench was mixed
with the more savory smell of cooking. One Sunday
morning, before the winter was quite gone, the sight
of the frozen refuse melting in heaps, and particularly
the loathsome edges of the rotting ice near the gutters,
with the strata of waste-paper and straw litter, and
egg - shells and orange - peel, potato - skins and cigar-
stumps, made him unhappy. He gave a whimsical
shrug for the squalor of the neighboring houses, and
said to himself rather than the boy who was with him :
" It's curious, isn't it, how fond the poor people are of
these unpleasant thoroughfares ? You always find them
living in the worst streets."

" The burden of all the wrong in the world comes
on the poor," said the boy. "Every sort of fraud
and swindling hurts them the worst. The city wastes
the money it's paid to clean the streets with, and the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

poor Lave to suffer, for they can't afford to pay twice,
like the rich."

March stopped short. " Hallo, Tom ! Is that your
wisdom ?"

" It's what Mr. Lindau says/' answered the boy,
doggedly, as if not pleased to have his ideas mocked
at, even if they were second-hand.

" And you didn't tell him that the poor lived in
dirty streets because they liked them, and were too
lazy and worthless to have them cleaned ?"

"No; I didn't."

" I'm surprised. What do you think of Lindau,
generally speaking, Tom?'7

" Well, sir, I don't like the way he talks about some
things. I don't suppose this country is perfect, but I
think it's about the best there is, and it don't do any
good to look at its drawbacks all the time."

" Sound, my son," said March, putting his hand on
the boy's shoulder and beginning to walk on. " Well 'I"

" Well, then, he says that it isn't the public frauds
only that the poor have to pay for, but they have to
pay for all the vices of the rich ; that when a speculator
fails, or a bank cashier defaults, or a firm suspends, or
hard times come, it's the poor who have to give up
necessaries where the rich give up luxuries."

" Well, well ! And then ?"

" Well, then I think the crank comes in, in Mr.
Lindau. He says there's no need of failures or frauds
or hard times. It's ridiculous. There always have
been and there always will be. But if you tell him
that, it seems to make him perfectly furious."

March repeated the substance of this talk to his wife.
" I'm glad to know that Tom can see through such
ravings. He has lots of good common sense."

It was the afternoon of the same Sunday, and they

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

were sauntering up Fifth Avenue, and admiring the
wide old douhle houses at the lower end; at one corner
they got a distinct pleasure out of the gnarled elbows
that a pollarded wistaria leaned upon the top of a
garden wall — for its convenience in looking into the
street, he said. The line of these comfortable dwell
ings, once so fashionable, was continually broken by
the facades of shops; and March professed himself
vulgarized by a want of style in the people they met
in their walk to Twenty-third Street.

" Take me somewhere to meet my fellow-exclusives,
Isabel," he demanded. " I pine for the society of my
peers."

He hailed a passing omnibus, and made his wife
get on the roof with him. " Think of our doing such
a thing in Boston!" she sighed, with a little shiver of
satisfaction in her immunity from recognition and
comment.

" You wouldn't be afraid to do it in London or
Paris ?"

" No ; we should be strangers there — just as we are
in !N"ew York. 1 wronder how long one could be a
stranger here."

" Oh, indefinitely, in our way of living. The place
is really vast, so much larger than it used to seem, and
so heterogeneous."

When they got down very far up-town, and began to
walk back by Madison Avenue, they found themselves
in a different population from that they dwelt among;
not heterogeneous at all ; very homogeneous, and almost
purely American ; the only qualification was American
Hebrew. Such a well - dressed, well - satisfied, well-
fed looking crowd poured down the broad sidewalks
before the handsome, stupid houses that March could
easily pretend he had got among his fellow-plutocrats

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

at last. Still he expressed his doubts whether this
Sunday afternoon parade, which seemed to be a thing
of custom, represented the best form among the young
people of that region; he wished he knew; he blamed
himself for becoming of a fastidious conjecture; he
could not deny the fashion and the richness and the
indigeneity of the spectacle; the promenaders looked
!N"ew-Yorky; they were the sort of people whom you
would know for New-Yorkers elsewhere, so well equip
ped and so perfectly kept at all points. Their silk
hats shone, and their boots ; their frocks had the right
distension behind, and their bonnets perfect poise and
distinction.

The Marches talked of these and other facts of their
appearance, and curiously questioned whether this were
the best that a great material civilization could come
to; it looked a little dull. The men's faces were
shrewd and alert, and yet they looked dull; the wom
en's were pretty and knowing, and yet dull. It was,
probably, the holiday expression of the vast, prosper
ous commercial class, with unlimited money, and no
ideals that money could not realize ; fashion and com
fort were all that they desired to compass, and the
culture that furnishes showily, that decorates and that
tells ; the culture, say, of plays and operas, rather than
books.

Perhaps the observers did the promenaders in
justice; they might not have been as common-minded
as they looked. " But," March said, " I understand
now why the poor people don't come up here and live
in this clean, handsome, respectable quarter of the
town; they would be bored to death. On the whole,
I think I should prefer Mott Street myself."

In other walks the Marches tried to find some of
the streets they had wandered through the first day

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of their wedding journey in New York, so long ago.
They could not make sure of them; but once they
ran down to the Battery, and easily made sure of that,
though not in its old aspect. They recalled the hot
morning, when they sauntered over the trodden weed
that covered the sickly grass-plots there, and sentimen
talized the sweltering paupers who had crept out of the
squalid tenements about for a breath of air after a
sleepless night. Now the paupers were gone, and where
the old mansions that had fallen to their use once stood,
there towered aloft and abroad those heights and
masses of many-storied brick-work for which archi
tecture has yet no proper form and aesthetics no name.
The trees and shrubs, all in their young spring green,
blew briskly over the guarded turf in the south wind
that came up over the water; and in the well-paved
alleys the ghosts of eighteenth-century fashion might
have met each other in their old haunts, and exchanged
stately congratulations upon its vastly bettered condi
tion, and perhaps puzzled a little over the colossal lady
on Bedloe's Island, with her lifted torch, and still more
over the curving tracks and chalet-stations of the Ele
vated road. It is an outlook of unrivalled beauty
across the bay, that smokes and flashes with the in
numerable stacks and sails of commerce, to the hills
beyond, where the moving forest of masts halts at the
shore, and roots itself in the groves of the many-
villaged uplands. The Marches paid the charming
prospects a willing duty, and rejoiced in it as gen
erously as if it had been their own. Perhaps it was,
they decided. He said people owned more things in
common than they were apt to think; and they drew
the consolations of proprietorship from the excellent
management of Castle Garden, which they penetrated
for a moment's glimpse of the huge rotunda, where the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

immigrants first set foot on our continent. It warmed
their hearts, so easily moved to any cheap sympathy,
to see the friendly care the nation took of these humble
guests; they found it even pathetic to hear the proper
authority calling out the names of such as had kin or
acquaintance waiting there to meet them. No one ap
peared troubled or anxious; the officials had a con
scientious civility; the government seemed to manage
their welcome as well as a private company or cor
poration could have done. In fact, it was after the
simple strangers had left the government care that
March feared their woes might begin ; and he would
have liked the government to follow each of them to
his home, wherever he meant to fix it within our bor
ders. He made note of the looks of the licensed run
ners and touters waiting for the immigrants outside the
government premises; he intended to work them up
into a dramatic effect in some sketch, but they re
mained mere material in his memorandum - book, to
gether with some quaint old houses on the Sixth
Avenue road, which he had noticed on the way down.
On the way up, these were superseded in his regard by
some hip-roof structures on the Ninth Avenue, which
he thought more- Dutch-looking. The perspectives of
the cross-streets toward the river were very lively, with
their turmoil of trucks and cars and carts and hacks
and foot-passengers, ending in the chimneys and masts
of shipping, and final gleams of dancing water. At a
very noisy corner, clangorous with some sort of iron-
working, he made his wife enjoy with him the quiet
sarcasm of an inn that called itself the Home - like
Hotel, and he speculated at fantastic length on the
gentle associations of one who should have passed his
youth under its roof.

Ill

FIRST and last, the Marches did a good deal of
travel on the Elevated roads, which, he said, gave
you such glimpses of material aspects in the city as
some violent invasion of others' lives might afford in
human nature. Once, when the impulse of adventure
was very strong in them, they went quite the length
of the West Side lines, and saw the city pushing its
way by irregular advances into the country. Some
spaces, probably held by the owners for that rise in
value which the industry of others providentially gives
to the land of the wise and good, it left vacant com
paratively far down the road, and built up others at
remoter points. It was a world of lofty apartment-
houses beyond the Park, springing up in isolated blocks,
with stretches of invaded rusticity between, and here
and there an old country-seat standing dusty in its
budding vines with the ground before it in rocky up
heaval for city foundations. But wherever it went or
wherever it paused, New York gave its peculiar stamp ;
and the adventurers were amused to find One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth Street inchoately like Twenty-third
Street and Fourteenth Street in its shops and shoppers.
The butchers' shops and milliners' shops on the ave
nue might as well have been at Tenth as at One Hun
dredth Street.

The adventurers were not often so adventurous.
They recognized that in their willingness to let their

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

fancy range for them, and to let speculation do the
work of inquiry, they were no longer young. Their
point of view was singularly unchanged, and their
impressions of New York remained the same that they
had been fifteen years before: huge, noisy, ugly, kind
ly, it seemed to them now as it seemed then. The
main difference was that they saw it more now as a
life, and then they only regarded it as a spectacle ; and
March could not release himself from a sense of com
plicity with it, no matter what whimsical, or alien, or
critical attitude he took. A sense of the striving and
the suffering deeply possessed him; and this grew the
more intense as he gained some knowledge of the
forces at work — forces of pity, of destruction, of per
dition, of salvation. He wandered about on Sunday
not only through the streets, but into this tabernacle
and that, as the spirit moved him, and listened to those
who dealt with Christianity as a system of economics
as well as a religion. He could not get his wife to
go with him; she listened to his report of what he
heard, and trembled; it all seemed fantastic and men
acing. She lamented the literary peace, the intellect
ual refinement of the life they had left behind them;
and he owned it was very pretty, but he said it was
not life — it was death-in-life. She liked to hear him
talk in that strain of virtuous self-denunciation, but
she asked him, " Which, of your prophets are you going
to follow ?" and he answered : " All — all ! And a fresh
one every Sunday." And so they got their laugh out
of it at last, but with some sadness at heart, and with
a dim consciousness that they had got their laugh out
of too many things in life.

What really occupied and compassed his activities,
in spite of his strenuous reveries of work beyond it,
was his editorship. On its social side it had not ful-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

filled all the expectations which Fulkerson's radiant
sketch of its duties and relations had caused him to
form of it. Most of the contributions came from a
distance ; even the articles written in ]^ew York reach
ed him through the post, and so far from having his
valuable time, as they called it, consumed in inter
views with his collaborators, he rarely saw any of them.
The boy on the stairs, who was to fence him from im
portunate visitors, led a life of luxurious disoccupation,
and whistled almost uninterruptedly. When any one
came, March found himself embarrassed and a little
anxious. The visitors were usually young men, ter
ribly respectful, but cherishing, as he imagined, ideals
and opinions chasmally different from his; and he felt
in their presence something like an anachronism, some
thing like a fraud. He tried to freshen up his sym
pathies on them, to get at what they were really think
ing and feeling, and it was some time before he could
understand that they were not really thinking and feel
ing anything of their own concerning their art, but
were necessarily, in their quality of young, inexperi
enced men, mere acceptants of older men's thoughts
and feelings, whether they were tremendously con
servative, as some were, or tremendously progressive,
as others were. Certain of them called themselves
realists, certain romanticists ; but none of them seemed
to know what realism was, or what romanticism; they
apparently supposed the difference a difference of ma
terial. March had imagined himself taking home to
lunch or dinner the aspirants for editorial favor whom
he liked, whether he liked their work or not; but this
was not an easy matter. Those who were at all inter
esting seemed to have engagements and preoccupations ;
after two or three experiments with the bashfuller sort

— those who had come up to the metropolis with manu-
24 355

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

scripts in their hands, in the good old literary tradi
tion — he wondered whether he was otherwise like them
when he was young like them. lie could not flatter
himself that he was not ; and yet he had a hope that the
world had grown worse since his time, which his wife
encouraged.

Mrs. March was not eager to pursue the hospitali
ties which she had at first imagined essential to the
literary prosperity of Every Other Week; her family
sufficed her; she would willingly have seen no one
out of it but the strangers at the weekly table-d'hote
dinner, or the audiences at the theatres. March's de
votion to his work made him reluctant to delegate it
to any one ; and as the summer advanced, and the ques
tion of where to go grew more vexed, he showed a man's
base willingness to shirk it for himself by not going
anywhere. He asked his wife why she did not go
somewhere with the children, and he joined her in a
search for non-malarial regions on the map when she
consented to entertain this notion. But when it came
to the point she would not go ; he offered to go with
her then, and then she would not let him. She said
she knew he would be anxious about his work; ho
protested that he could take it with him to any dis
tance within a few hours, but she would not be per
suaded. She would rather he stayed ; the effect would
be better with Mr. Fulkerson ; they could make ex
cursions, and they could all get off a week or two to
the seashore near Boston — the only real seashore — in
August. The excursions were practically confined to
a single day at Coney Island; and once they got as
far as Boston on the way to the seashore near Boston ;
that is, Mrs. March and the children wont; an editorial
exigency kept March at the last moment. The Boston
streets seemed very queer arid clean and empty to the

350

A HA/AUD OF NEW F O li 'I L :, I.

, and the building- JittJe; in the horse -caw
the Jio-ton faces seemed to arraign their mother with
a down-drawn severity that, made her feel very guilty.
She knew that thi- wa-; meielj rhr; Puritan mask, the
cast of a dead civilization, whieh people of very amiable
and tolerant, mind.s were doomed to wear, and
.-ii'li'-d to think that less than a year of the hetero
geneous gayety of New York should have made her
afraid of it. The sky seemed cold and gray; the east
d, whi'-h she had always thought so df-lieiou-: in
-umiM-r. < -nt hr-r to the heart. She took her children
up to the South Knd, and in the pretty square where
they used to live they stood before their ali<-n;>t<-d
home, and looked up at its close - shuttered windows.
The tenants must have been away, but Mr-. Mareh
had not the courage to ring and make sure, though
she had alway.-: promised herself that she would go
all over the house when she came back, and see how
they had used it : -he eoiild pretend a desire for some
thing she wished to take away. She knew she could
not Uar it now; and the children did not seem eager.
She did not push on to the seaside; it would be for
lorn there without their father; she was glad to go
bfK-k to him in the immense, friendly hornelessness of
New York, and hold him answerable for the change,
in her heart or her mind, which made its shapelflll
tumult a refuge and a consolation.

She found that he had been giving the cook a holi
day, and dining about hither and thither with Fulker-
son. Once he had dined with him at the widow's (as
they always called Mr-. L' : then had spent

the evening there, and smoked with Fulkerson and
C'oJonel Woodburn on the gallery overlooking the baek
yard. They were all spending the summer in New
VorL The widow had got so good an offer for her

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

house at St. Barnaby for the summer that she could
not refuse it; and the Woodburns found New York
a watering-place of exemplary coolness after the burn
ing Augusts and Septembers of Charlottesburg.

" You can stand it well enough in our climate, sir,"
the colonel explained, " till you come to the September
heat, that sometimes runs well into October ; and then
you begin to lose your temper, sir. It's never quite
so hot as it is in New York at times, but it's hot longer,
sir." He alleged, as if something of the sort were
necessary, the example of a famous Southwestern edit
or who spent all his summers in a New York hotel as
the most luxurious retreat on the continent, consulting
the weather forecasts, and running off on torrid days
to the mountains or the sea, and then hurrying back
at the promise of cooler weather. The colonel had not
found it necessary to do this yet; and he had been
reluctant to leave town, where he was working up a
branch of the inquiry which had so long occupied him,
in the libraries, and studying the great problem of
labor and poverty as it continually presented itself to
him in the streets. He said that he talked with all
sorts of people, whom he found monstrously civil, if
you took them in the right way; and he went every
where in the city without fear and apparently without
danger. March could not find out that he had ridden
his hobby into the homes of want which he visited, or
had proposed their enslavement to the inmates as a
short and simple solution of the great question of their
lives; he appeared to have contented himself with the
collection of facts for the persuasion of the cultivated
classes. It seemed to March a confirmation of this im
pression that the colonel should address his deductions
from these facts so unsparingly to him; he listened
with a respectful patience, for which Fulkerson after-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ward personally thanked him. Fulkerson said it was
not often the colonel found such a good listener; gen
erally nobody listened but Mrs. Leighton, who thought
his ideas were shocking, but honored him for hold
ing them so conscientiously. Fulkerson was glad that
March, as the literary department, had treated the
old gentleman so well, because there was an open feud
between him and the art department. Beaton was out
rageously rude, Fulkerson must say ; though as for that,
the old colonel seemed quite able to take care of himself,
and gave Beaton an unqualified contempt in return for
his unmannerliness. The worst of it was, it distressed
the old lady so; she admired Beaton as much as she
respected the colonel, and she admired Beaton, Fulker
son thought, rather more than Miss Leighton did; he
asked March if he had noticed them together. March
had noticed them, but without any very definite im
pression except that Beaton seemed to give the whole
evening to the girl. Afterward he recollected that he
had fancied her rather harassed by his devotion, and it
was this point that he wished to present for his wife's
opinion.

" Girls often put on that air," she said. " It's one
of their ways of teasing. But then, if the man was
really very much in love, and she was only enough in
love to be uncertain of herself, she might very well
seem troubled. It would be a very serious question.
Girls often don't know what to do in such a case."

"Yes," said March, "I've often been glad that I
was not a girl, on that account. But I guess that on
general principles Beaton is not more in love than she
is. I couldn't imagine that young man being more in
love with anybody, unless it was himself. He might
be more in love with himself than any one else was."

" Well, he doesn't interest me a great deal, and I

359

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

can't say Miss Leighton does, either. I think she can
take care of herself. She has herself very well in
hand."

" Why so censorious ?" pleaded March. " I don't
defend her for having herself in hand; but is it a
fault?"

Mrs. March did not say. She asked, " And how does
Mr. Fulkerson's affair get on ?"

"His affair? You really think it is one? Well,
I've fancied so myself, and I've had an idea of some
time asking him; Fulkerson strikes one as truly do
mesticable, conjugable at heart ; but I've waited for
him to speak."

" I should think so."

" Yes. He's never opened on the subject yet. Do
you know, I think Fulkerson has his moments of
delicacy."

" Moments ! He's all delicacy in regard to women."

" Well, perhaps so. There is nothing in them to
rouse his advertising instincts."

IV

THE Dry f oos family stayed in town till August.
Then the father went West again to look after his
interests; and Mrs. Mandel took the two girls to one
of the great hotels in Saratoga. Fulkerson said that
he had never seen anything like Saratoga for fashion,
and Mrs. Mandel remembered that in her own young
ladyhood this was so for at least some weeks of the
year. She had been too far withdrawn from fashion
since her marriage to know whether it was still so or
not. In this, as in so many other matters, the Dryfoos
family helplessly relied upon Fulkerson, in spite of
Dryfoos's angry determination that he should not run
the family, and in spite of Christine's doubt of his
omniscience; if he did not know everything, she was
aware that he knew more than herself. She thought
that they had a right to have him go with them to
Saratoga, or at least go up and engage their rooms
beforehand; but Fulkerson did not offer to do either,
and she did not quite see her way to commanding his
services. The young ladies took what Mela called
splendid dresses with them; they sat in the park of
tall, slim trees which the hotel's quadrangle enclosed,
and listened to the music in the morning, or on the
long piazza in the afternoon and looked at the driving
in the street, or in the vast parlors by night, where all
the other ladies were, and they felt that they were of
the best there. But they knew nobody, and Mrs. Man-

361

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

del was so particular that Mela was prevented from
continuing the acquaintance even of the few young
men who danced with her at the Saturday-night hops.
They drove about, but they went to places without
knowing why, except that the carriage man took them,
and they had all the privileges of a proud exclusivism
without desiring them. Once a motherly matron seem
ed to perceive their isolation, and made overtures to
them, but then desisted, as if repelled by Christine's
suspicion, or by Mela's too instant and hilarious good-
fellowship, which expressed itself in hoarse laughter
and in a flow of talk full of topical and syntactical
freedom. From time to time she offered to bet Chris
tine that if Mr. Fulkerson was only there they would
have a good time; she wondered what they were all
doing in New York, where she wished herself; she
rallied her sister about Beaton, and asked her why she
did not write and tell him to come up there.

Mela knew that Christine had expected Beaton to
follow them. Some banter had passed between them
to this effect; he said he should take them in on his
way home to Syracuse. Christine would not have hesi
tated to write to him and remind him of his promise;
but she had learned to distrust her literature with Bea
ton since he had laughed at the spelling in a scrap of
writing which dropped out of her music-book one night.
She believed that he would not have laughed if he had
known it was hers; but she felt that she could hide
better the deficiencies which were not committed to
paper; she could manage with him in talking; she was
too ignorant of her ignorance to recognize the mis
takes she made then. Through Her own passion she
perceived that she had some kind of fascination for
him; she was graceful, and she thought it must be
that; she did not understand that there was a kind of

362

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

beauty in her small, irregular features that piqued and
haunted his artistic sense, and a look in her black eyes
beyond her intelligence and intention. Once he sketch
ed her as they sat together, and flattered the portrait
without getting what he wanted in it; he said he must
try her some time in color; and he said things which,
when she made Mela repeat them, could only mean
that he admired her more than anybody else. He came
fitfully, but he came often, and she rested content in
a girl's indefiniteness concerning the affair ; if her
thought went beyond love-making to marriage, she be
lieved that she could have him if she wanted him. Her
father's money counted in this ; she divined that Beaton
was poor ; but that made no difference ; she would have
enough for both ; the money would have counted as an
irresistible attraction if there had been no- other.

The affair had gone on in spite of the sidelong looks
of restless dislike with which Dryfoos regarded it ; but
now when Beaton did not come to Saratoga it neces
sarily dropped, and Christine's content with it. She
bore the trial as long as she could ; she used pride and
resentment against it; but at last she could not bear
it, and with Mela's help she wrote a letter, bantering
Beaton on his stay in New York, and playfully boast
ing of Saratoga. It seemed to them both that it was
a very bright letter, and would be sure to bring him;
they would have had no scruple about sending it but
for the doubt they had whether they had got some of
the words right. Mela offered to bet Christine any
thing she dared that they were right, and she said,
Send it anyway; it was no difference if they were
wrong. But Christine could not endure to think of
that laugh of Beaton's, and there remained only Mrs.
Mandel as authority on the spelling. Christine dread
ed her authority on other points, but Mela said she

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

knew she would not interfere, and she undertook to
get round her. Mrs. Mandel pronounced the spell
ing bad, and the taste worse ; she forbade them to send
the letter; and Mela failed to get round her, though
she threatened, if Mrs. Mandel would not tell her how
to spell the wrong words, that she would send the let
ter as it was ; then Mrs. Mandel said that if Mr. Beaton
appeared in Saratoga she would instantly take them
both home. When Mela reported this result, Christine
accused her of having mismanaged the whole business ;
she quarrelled with her, and they called each other
names. Christine declared that she would not stay in
Saratoga, and that if Mrs. Mandel did not go back to
JSTew York with her she should go alone. They re
turned the first week in September; but by that time
Beaton had gone to see his people in Syracuse.

Conrad Dryfoos remained at home with his mother
after his father went West. He had already taken such
a vacation as he had been willing to allow himself, and
had spent it on a charity farm near the city, where the
fathers with whom he worked among the poor on the
East Side in the winter had sent some of their wards
for the summer. It was not possible to keep his recrea
tion a secret at the office, and Fulkerson found a pleas
ure in figuring the jolly time Brother Conrad must
have teaching farm work among those paupers and
potential reprobates. He invented details of his ex
perience among them, and March could not always help
joining in the laugh at Conrad's humorless helplessness
under Fulkerson's burlesque denunciation of a summer
outing spent in such dissipation.

They had time for a great deal of joking at the
office during the season of leisure which penetrates
in August to the very heart of business, and they all
got on terms of greater intimacy if not greater friendli-

364

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ness than before. Fulkerson had not had so long to
do with the advertising side of human nature without
developing a vein of cynicism, of no great depth, per
haps, but broad, and underlying his whole point of
view ; he made light of Beaton's solemnity, as he made
light of Conrad's humanity. The art editor, with
abundant sarcasm, had no more humor than the pub
lisher, and was an easy prey in the manager's hands;
but when he had been led on by Fulkerson's flatteries
to make some betrayal of egotism, he brooded over it
till he had thought how to revenge himself in elaborate
insult. For Beaton's talent F'ulkerson never lost his
admiration ; but his joke was to encourage him to give
himself airs of being the sole source of the magazine's
prosperity. No bait of this sort was too obvious for
Beaton to swallow; he could be caught with it as often
as Fulkerson chose; though he was ordinarily sus
picious as to the motives of people in saying things.
With March he got on no better than at first. He
seemed to be lying in wait for some encroachment of
the literary department on the art department, and he
met it now and then with anticipative reprisal. After
these rebuffs, the editor delivered him over to the man
ager, who could turn Beaton's contrary-mindedness to
account by asking the reverse of what he really wanted
done. This was what Fulkerson said ; the fact was that
he did get on with Beaton ; and March contented him
self with musing upon the contradictions of a character
at once so vain and so offensive, so fickle and so sullen,
so conscious and so simple.

After the first jarring contact with Dryfoos, the
editor ceased to feel the disagreeable fact of the old
man's mastery of the financial situation. None of the
chances which might have made it painful occurred;
the control of the whole affair remained in Fulkerson's

365

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

hands; before he went West again, Dryfoos had ceased
to conie about the office, as if, having once worn off the
novelty of the sense of owning a literary periodical, he
was no longer interested in it.

Yet it was a relief, somehow, when he left town,
which he did not do without coming to take a formal
leave of the editor at his office. He seemed willing
to leave March with a better impression than he had
hitherto troubled himself to make; he even said some
civil things about the magazine, as if its success pleased
him; and he spoke openly to March of his hope that
his son would finally become interested in it to the
exclusion of the hopes and purposes which divided
them. It seemed to March that in the old man's
warped and toughened heart he perceived a disap
pointed love for his son greater than for his other
children; but this might have been fancy. Lindau
came in with some copy while Dryfoos was there, and
March introduced them. When Lindau went out,
March explained to Dryfoos that he had lost his hand
in the war; and he told him something of Lindau's
career as he had known it. Dryfoos appeared greatly
pleased that Every Other Week was giving Lindau
work. He said that he had helped to enlist a good
many fellows for the war, and had paid money to fill
up the Moffitt County quota under the later calls for
troops. He had never been an Abolitionist, but he had
joined the Anti - Nebraska party in '55, and he had
voted for Fremont and for every Republican President
since then.

At his own house March saw more of Lindau than
of any other contributor, but the old man seemed to
think that he must transact all his business with March
at his place of business. The transaction had some
peculiarities which perhaps made this necessary, Lin-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

dau always expected to receive his money when he
brought his copy, as an acknowledgment of the im
mediate right of the laborer to his hire ; and he would
not take it in a check because he did not approve of
banks, and regarded the whole system of banking as
the capitalistic manipulation of the people's money.
He would receive his pay only from March's hand,
because he wished to be understood as working for
him, and honestly earning money honestly earned;
and sometimes March inwardly winced a little at let
ting the old man share the increase of capital won
by such speculation as Dryfoos's, but he shook off the
feeling. As the summer advanced, and the artists and
classes that employed Lindau as a model left town one
after another, he gave largely of his increasing leisure
to the people in the office of Every Other Week. It
was pleasant for March to see the respect with which
Conrad Dryfoos always used him, for the sake of his
hurt and his gray beard. There was something delicate
and fine in it, and there was nothing unkindly on Ful-
kerson's part in the hostilities which usually passed
between himself and Lindau. Fulkerson bore himself
reverently at times, too, but it was not in him to
keep that up, especially when Lindau appeared with
more beer aboard than, as Fulkerson said, he could
manage ship - shape. On these occasions Fulkerson
always tried to start him on the theme of the unduly
rich; he made himself the champion of monopolies,
and enjoyed the invectives which Lindau heaped upon
him as a slave of capital; he said that it did him
good.

One day, with the usual show of writhing under
Lindau's scorn, he said, " Well, I understand that al
though you despise me now, Lindau—

" I ton't desbise you," the old man broke in, his

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

nostrils swelling and his eyes flaming with excite
ment, " I bity you."

" Well, it seems to come to the same thing in the
end/' said Fulkerson. " What I understand is that
you pity me now as the slave of capital, but you
would pity me a great deal more if I was the master
of it."

" How you mean ?"

" If I was rich."

" That would tebendt," said Lindau, trying to con
trol himself. " If you hat inherited! your money, you
might pe innocent; but if you hat mate it, efery man
that resbectedt himself would haf to ask how you mate
it, and if you hat mate moch, he would know — "

" Hold on ; hold on, now, Lindau ! Ain't that rather
un-American doctrine? We're all brought up, ain't
we, to honor the man that made his money, and look
down — or try to look down; sometimes it's difficult —
on the fellow that his father left it to ?"

The old man rose and struck his breast. " On-
Amerigan!" he roared, and, as he went on, his ac
cent grew more and more uncertain. " What iss
Amerigan ? Dere iss no Ameriga any more ! You
start here free and brafe, and you glaim for efery
man de right to life, liperty, and de bursuit of habbi-
ness. And vhere haf you entedt ? !Nb man that vorks
vith his handts among you has the liperty to bursue
his habbiness. He iss the slafe of some richer man,
some gompany, some gorporation, dat crindt him down
to the least he can lif on, and that rops him of the
marchin of his earnings that he might pe habby on.
Oh, you Amerigans, you haf cot it down goldt, as you
say ! You ton't puy f oters ; you puy lechislatures and
goncressmen ; you puy gourts ; you puy gombetitors ;
you pay infentors not to infent; you atfertise, and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

the gounting - room sees dat de etitorial - room toesn't
tink."

" Yes, we've got a little arrangement of that sort
with March here," said Fulkerson.

" Oh, I am sawry," said the old man, contritely,
" I meant noting bersonal. I ton't tink we are all
cuilty or gorrubt, and efen among the rich there are
goodt men. But gabidal " —his passion rose again —
" vhere you find gabidal, millions of money that a man
hass cot togeder in fife, ten, tventy years, you findt
the smell of tears and ploodt! Dat iss what I say.
And you cot to loog oudt for yourself when you meet
a rich man whether you meet an honest man."

" Well," said Fulkerson, " I wish I was a subject
of suspicion with you, Linclau. By-the-way," he added,
" I understand that you think capital was at the bot
tom of the veto of that pension of yours."

" What bension ? What f eto ?" The old man flamed
up again. " ~No bension of mine was efer fetoedt. I
renounce my bension, begause I would sgorn to dako
money from a gofernment that I ton't peliefe in any
more. Where you hear that story ?"

" Well, I don't know," said Fulkerson, rather em
barrassed. " It's common talk."

" It's a gommon lie, then ! When the time gome
dat dis iss a free gountry again, then I dake a bension
again for my woundts; but I would sdarfe before I
dake a bension now from a rebublic dat iss bought oap
by monobolies, and ron by drusts and gompines, and
railroadts adnt oil gompanies."

" Look out, Lindau," said Fulkerson. " You bite
yourself in it dat dog some day." But when the old
man, with a ferocious gesture of renunciation, whirled
out of the place, he added : " I guess I went a little
too far that time. I touched him on a sore place; I

369

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

didn't mean to; I heard some talk about his pension
being vetoed from Miss Leighton." He addressed these
exculpations to March's grave face, and to the pitying
deprecation in the eyes of Conrad Dryfoos, whom Lin-
dau's roaring wrath had summoned to the door. " But
I'll make it all right with him the next time he comes.
I didn't know he was loaded, or I wouldn't have mon
keyed with him."

" Lindau does himself injustice when he gets to talk
ing in that way,7' said March. " I hate to hear him.
He's as good an American as any of us; and it's only
because he has too high an ideal of us — "

" Oh, go on ! Rub it in — rub it in !" cried Fulker-
son, clutching his hair in suffering, which was not
altogether burlesque. " How did I know he had re
nounced his ' bension ' ? Why didn't you tell me ?"

" I didn't know it myself. I only knew that he had
none, and I didn't ask, for I had a notion that it might
be a painful subject."

Fulkerson tried to turn it off lightly. " Well, he's
a noble old fellow ; pity he drinks." March would not
smile, and Fulkerson broke out : " Dog on it ! I'll make
it up to the old fool the next time he comes. I don't
like that dynamite talk of his ; but any man that's given
his hand to the country has got mine in his grip for
good. Why, March! You don't suppose I wanted to
hurt his feelings, do you ?"

" Why, of course not, Fulkerson."

But they could not get away from a certain rueful
ness for that time, and in the evening Fulkerson came
round to March's to say that he had got Lindau's
address from Conrad, and had looked him up at his
lodgings.

" Well, there isn't so much bric-a-brac there, quite,

as Mrs. Green left you; but I've made it all right

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with Lindau, as far as I'm concerned. I told him I
didn't know when I spoke that way, and I honored
him for sticking to his ' brinciples ' ; I don't believe
in his { brincibles ' ; and we wept on each other's necks
— at least, he did. Dogged if he didn't kiss me before
I knew what he was up to. He said I was his chener-
ous yong friendt, and he begged my barton if he had
said anything to wound me. I tell you it was an af
fecting scene, March; and rats enough round in that
old barracks where he lives to fit out a first-class case
of delirium tremens. What does he stay there for?
He's not obliged to 3"

Lindau's reasons, as March repeated them, affected
Fulkerson as deliciously comical ; but after that he
confined his pleasantries at the office to Beaton and
Conrad Dryfoos, or, as he said, he spent the rest of
the summer in keeping Lindau smoothed up.

It is doubtful if Lindau altogether liked this as
well. Perhaps he missed the occasions Fulkerson
used to give him of bursting out against the million
aires ; and he could not well go on denouncing as the
slafe of gabidal a man who had behaved to him as
Fulkerson had done, though Fulkerson's servile re
lations to capital had been in nowise changed by his
nople gonduct.

Their relations continued to wear this irksome char
acter of mutual forbearance; and when Dryfoos re
turned in October and Fulkerson revived the question
of that dinner in celebration of the success of Every
Other Week, he carried his complaisance to an extreme
that alarmed March for the consequences.
25

" You see," Fulkerson explained, " I find that the
old man has got an idea of his own about that banquet,
and I guess there's some sense in it. He wants to have
a preliminary little dinner, where we can talk the
thing up first — half a dozen of us; and he wants to
give us the dinner at his house. Well, that's no harm.
I don't believe the old man ever gave a dinner, and
he'd like to show off a little; there's a good deal of
human nature in the old man, after all. He thought
of you, of course, and Colonel Woodburn, and Beaton,
and me at the foot of the table ; and Conrad ; and I sug
gested Kendricks: he's such a nice little chap; and the
old man himself brought up the idea of Lindau. He
said you told him something about him, and he asked
why couldn't we have him, too; and I jumped at it."

" Have Lindau to dinner ?" asked March.

" Certainly ; why not ? Father Dryfoos has a no
tion of paying the old fellow a compliment for what
he done for the country. There won't be any trouble
about it. You can sit alongside of him, and cut up
his meat for him, and help him to things —

" Yes, but it won't do, Fulkerson ! I don't believe
Lindau ever had on a dress-coat in his life, and I don't
believe his i brincibles ' would let him wear one."

" Well, neither had Dryfoos, for the matter of
that. He's as high - principled as old Pan - Electric
himself, when it comes to a dress-coat," said Fulker-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

son. " We're all going to go in business dress ; the
old man stipulated for that."

" It isn't the dress - coat alone," March resumed.
" Lindau and Dryfoos wouldn't get on. You know
they're opposite poles in everything. You mustn't do
it. Dryfoos will be sure to say something to outrage
Lindau's ' brincibles,' and there'll be an explosion.
It's all well enough for Dryfoos to feel grateful to
Lindau, and his wish to honor him does him credit;
but to have Lindau to dinner isn't the way. At the
best, the old fellow would be very unhappy in such a
house ; he would have a bad conscience ; and I should
be sorry to have him feel that he'd been recreant to
his ' brincibles ' ; they're about all he's got, and what
ever we think of them, we're bound to respect his
fidelity to them." March warmed toward Lindau in
taking this view of him. " I should feel ashamed if
I didn't protest against his being put in a false posi
tion. After all, he's my old friend, and I shouldn't
like to have him do himself injustice if he is a crank."

" Of course," said Fulkerson, with some trouble in
his face. " I appreciate your feeling. But there ain't
any danger," he added, buoyantly. " Anyhow, you
spoke too late, as the Irishman said to the chicken
when he swallowed him in a fresh egg. I've asked
Lindau, and he's accepted with blayzure; that's what
he says."

March made no other comment than a shrug.

" You'll see," Fulkerson continued, " it '11 go off all
right. I'll engage to make it, and I won't hold any
body else responsible."

In the course of his married life March had learned
not to censure the irretrievable ; but this was just what
his wife had not learned ; and she poured out so much
astonishment at what Fulkerson had done, and so much

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

disapproval, that March began to palliate the situation
a little.

" After all, it isn't a question of life and death ;
and, if it were, I don't see how it's to be helped now."

" Oh, it's not to be helped now. But I am surprised
at Mr. Fulkerson."

" Well, Fulkerson has his moments of being merely
human, too."

Mrs. March would not deign a direct defence of her
favorite. " Well, I'm glad there are not to be ladies."

" I don't know. Dryfoos thought of having ladies,
but it seems your infallible Fulkerson overruled him.
Their presence might have kept Lindau and our host
in bounds."

It had become part of the Marches' conjugal joke
for him to pretend that she could allow nothing wrong
in Fulkerson, and he now laughed with a mocking air
of having expected it when she said : " Well, then,
if Mr. Fulkerson says he will see that it all comes
out right, I suppose you must trust his tact. I wouldn't
trust yours, Basil. The first wrong step was taken when
Mr. Lindau was asked to help on the magazine."

" Well, it was your infallible Fulkerson that took
the step, or at least suggested it. I'm happy to say
/ had totally forgotten my early friend."

Mrs. March was daunted and silenced for a moment.
Then she said : " Oh, pshaw ! You know well enough
he did it to please you."

" I'm very glad he didn't do it to please you, Isabel,"
said her husband, with affected seriousness. " Though
perhaps he did."

He began to look at the humorous aspect of the af
fair, which it certainly had, and to comment on the
singular incongruities which Every Other Week was
destined to involve at every moment of its career. " I

374

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

wonder if I'm mistaken in supposing that no other
periodical was ever like it. Perhaps all periodicals
are like it. But I don't believe there's another pub
lication in New York that could bring together, in
honor of itself, a fraternity and equality crank like
poor old Lindau, and a belated sociological crank like
Woodburn, and a truculent speculator like old Dryfoos,
and a humanitarian dreamer like young Dryfoos,
and a sentimentalist like me, and a nondescript like
Beaton, and a pure advertising essence like Fulkerson,
and a society spirit like Kendricks. If we could only
allow one another to talk uninterruptedly all the time,
the dinner would be the greatest success in the world,
and we should come home full of the highest mutual
respect. But I suspect we can't manage that — even
your infallible Fulkerson couldn't work it — and I'm
afraid that there'll be some listening that '11 spoil the
pleasure of the time."

March was so well pleased with this view of the
case that he suggested the idea involved to Fulker
son. Fulkerson was too good a fellow not to laugh
at another man's joke, but he laughed a little ruefully,
and he seemed worn with more than one kind of care
in the interval that passed between the present time
and the night of the dinner.

Dryfoos necessarily depended upon him for advice
concerning the scope and nature of the dinner, but he
received the advice suspiciously, and contested points
of obvious propriety with pertinacious stupidity. Ful
kerson said that when it came to the point he would
rather have had the thing, as he called it, at Del-
monico's or some other restaurant ; but when he found
that Dryfoos's pride was bound up in having it at his
own house, he gave way to him. Dryfoos also wanted
his woman-cook to prepare the dinner, but Fulkerson

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

persuaded him that this would not do; he must have
it from a caterer. Then Dryfoos wanted his maids
to wait at table, but Fulkerson convinced him that
this would be incongruous at a man's dinner. It was
decided that the dinner should be sent in from Fresco-
baldi's, and Dryfoos went with Fulkerson to discuss
it with the caterer. He insisted upon having every
thing explained to him, and the reason for having it,
and not something else in its place; and he treated
Fulkerson and Frescobaldi as if they were in league
to impose upon him. There were moments when Ful-
kerson saw the varnish of professional politeness crack
ing on the Neapolitan's volcanic surface, and caught a
glimpse of the lava fires of the cook's nature beneath;
he trembled for Dryfoos, who was walking rough-shod
over him in the security of an American who had
known how to make his money, and must know how
to spend it; but he got him safely away at last, and
gave Frescobaldi a wink of sympathy for his shrug of
exhaustion as they turned to leave him.

It was at first a relief and then an anxiety with
Fulkerson that Lindau did not come about after ac
cepting the invitation to dinner, until he appeared at
Dryfoos's house, prompt to the hour. There was, to
be sure, nothing to bring him; but Fulkerson was un
easily aware that Dryfoos expected to meet him at the
office, and perhaps receive some verbal acknowledgment
of the honor done him. Dryfoos, he could see, thought
he was doing all his invited guests a favor; and while
he stood in a certain awe of them as people of much
greater social experience than himself, regarded them
with a kind of contempt, as people who were going to
have a better dinner at his house than they could ever
afford to have at their own. He had finally not spared
expense upon it; after pushing Frescobaldi to the point

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of eruption with his misgivings and suspicions at the
first interview, he had gone to him a second time alone,
and told him not to let the money stand between him
and anything he would like to do. In the absence of
Frescobaldi's fellow-conspirator he restored himself in
the caterer's esteem by adding whatever he suggested ;
and Fulkerson, after trembling for the old man's nig
gardliness, was now afraid of a fantastic profusion in
the feast. Dryfoos had reduced the scale of the ban
quet as regarded the number of guests, but a confusing
remembrance of what Fulkerson had wished to do re
mained with him in part, and up to the clay of the
dinner he dropped in at Frescobaldi's and ordered more
dishes and more of them. He impressed the Italian as
an American original of a novel kind; and when he
asked Fulkerson how Dryfoos had made his money,
and learned that it was primarily in natural gas, he
made note of some of his eccentric tastes as peculiari
ties that were to be caressed in any future natural-gas
millionaire who might fall into his hands. He did not
begrudge the time he had to give in explaining to Dry
foos the relation of the different wines to the different
dishes; Dryfoos was apt to substitute a costlier wine
where he could for a cheaper one, and he gave Fresco-
baldi carte blanche for the decoration of the table with
pieces of artistic confectionery. Among these the ca
terer designed one for a surprise to his patron and a
delicate recognition of the source of his wealth, which
he found Dryfoos very willing to talk abcut, when he
intimated that he knew what it was.

Dryfoos left it to Fulkerson to invite the guests,
and he found ready acceptance of his politeness from
Kendricks, who rightly regarded the dinner as a part
of the Every Other Week business, and was too sweet
and kind-hearted, anyway, not to seem very glad to

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

come. March was a matter of course ; but in Colonel
Woodburn Ftilkerson encountered a reluctance which
embarrassed him the more because he was conscious
of having, for motives of his own, rather strained a
point in suggesting the colonel to Dryfoos as a fit sub
ject for invitation. There had been only one of the
colonel's articles printed as yet, and though it had made
a sensation in its way, and started the talk about that
number, still it did not fairly constitute him a member
of the staff, or even entitle him to recognition as a
regular contributor. Fulkerson felt so sure of pleasing
him with Dryfoos's message that he delivered it in
full family council at the widow's. His daughter re
ceived it with all the enthusiasm that Fulkerson had
hoped for, but the colonel said, stiffly, " I have not
the pleasure of knowing Mr. Dryfoos." Miss Wood-
burn appeared ready to fall upon him at this, but con
trolled herself, as if aware that filial authority had its
limits, and pressed her lips together without saying
anything.

" Yes, I know," Fulkerson admitted. " But it isn't
a usual case. Mr. Dryfoos don't go in much for the
conventionalities; I reckon he don't know much about
'em, come to boil it down ; and he hoped " — here Ful
kerson felt the necessity of inventing a little — " that
you would excuse any want of ceremony; it's to be
such an informal affair, anyway; we're all going in
business dress, and there ain't going to be any ladies.
He'd have come himself to ask you, but he's a kind of
a bashful old fellow. It's all right, Colonel Wood-
burn."

" I take it that it is, sir," said the colonel, courteous
ly, but with unabated state, " coming from you. But
in these matters we have no right to burden our friends

with our decisions."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Of course, of course," said Fulkerson, feeling that
he had heen delicately told to mind his own business.

" I understand," the colonel went on, " the relation
that Mr. Dryfoos bears to the periodical in which you
have done me the hono' to print my papah, but this
is a question of passing the bounds of a purely business
connection, and of eating the salt of a man whom you
do not definitely know to be a gentleman."

" Mali goodness !" his daughter broke in. " If you
bah your own salt with his money — "

" It is supposed that I earn his money before I buy
my salt with it," returned her father, severely. " And
in these times, when money is got in heaps, through
the natural decay of our nefarious commercialism, it
behooves a gentleman to be scrupulous that the hos
pitality offered him is not the profusion of a thief with
his booty. I don't say that Mr. Dryfoos's good-fortune
is not honest. I simply say that I know nothing about
it, and that I should prefer to know something before
I sat down at his board."

" You're all right, colonel," said Fulkerson, " and
so is Mr. Dryfoos. I give you my word that there
are no flies on his personal integrity, if that's what
you mean. He's hard, and he'd push an advantage,
but I don't believe he would take an unfair one. He's
speculated and made money every time, but I never
heard of his wrecking a railroad or belonging to any
swindling company or any grinding monopoly. He
does chance it in stocks, but he's always played on the
square, if you call stocks gambling."

" May I think this over till morning ?" asked the
colonel.

" Oh, certainly, certainly," said Fulkerson, eagerly.
" I don't know as there's any hurry."

Miss Woodburn found a chance to murmur to him

.370

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

before he went : " He'll come. And Ah'm so much
oblahged, Mr. Fulkerson. Ah jost know it's all you'
doing, and it will give papa a chance to toak to some
new people, and get away from us evahlastin' women
for once."

" I don't see why any one should want to do that,"
said Fulkerson, with grateful gallantry. " But I'll be
dogged," he said to March when he told him, about this
odd experience, " if I ever expected to find Colonel
Woodburn on old Lindau's ground. He did come
round handsomely this morning at breakfast and apolo
gized for taking time to think the invitation over before
he accepted. ' You understand,' he says, ' that if it
had been to the table of some friend not so prosperous
as Mr. Dryfoos — your friend Mr. March, for instance
— it would have been sufficient to know that he was
your friend. But in these days it is a duty that a
gentleman owes himself to consider whether he wishes
to know a rich man or not. The chances of making
money disreputably are so great that the chances are
against a man wTho has made money if he's made a
great deal of it.' '

March listened with a face of ironical insinuation.
" That was very good ; and he seems to have had a
good deal of confidence in your patience and in your
sense of his importance to the occasion—

" No, no," Fulkerson protested, " there's none of
that kind of thing about the colonel. I told him to
take time to think it over; he's the simplest-hearted
old fellow in the world."

" I should say so. After all, he didn't give any
reason he had for accepting. But perhaps the young
lady had the reason."

" Pshaw, March !" said Fulkerson.

VI

So far as the Dryfoos family was concerned, the
dinner might as well have been given at Frescobaldi's
rooms. None of the ladies appeared. Mrs. Dryfoos
was glad to escape to her own chamber, where she sat
before an autumnal fire, shaking her head and talking
to herself at times, with the foreboding of evil which
old women like her make part of their religion. The
girls stood just out of sight at the head of the stairs,
and disputed which guest it was at each arrival; Mrs.
Mandel had gone to her room to write letters, after
beseeching them not to stand there. When Kendricks
came, Christine gave Mela a little pinch, equivalent to
a little mocking -shriek ; for, on the ground of his long
talk with Mela at Mrs. Horn's, in the absence of any
other admirer, they based a superstition of his inter
est in her ; when Beaton came, Mela returned the pinch,
but awkwardly, so that it hurt, and then Christine in
voluntarily struck her.

Frescobaldi's men were in possession everywhere:
they 4iad turned the cook out of her kitchen and the
waitress out of her pantry; the reluctant Irishman at
the door was supplemented by a vivid Italian, who
spoke French with the guests, and said, ee Bi-en, Mon
sieur" and " Toute suite" and " Merci !" to all, as he
took their hats and coats, and effused a hospitality that
needed no language but the gleam of his eyes and teeth
and the play of his eloquent hands. From his pro-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

fessional dress-coat, lustrous with the grease spotted on
it at former dinners and parties, they passed to the
frocks of the elder and younger Dryfoos in the draw
ing-room, which assumed informality for the affair, but
did not put their wearers wholly at their ease. The
father's coat was of black broadcloth, and he wore it
unbuttoned ; the skirts were long, and the sleeves came
down to his knuckles ; he shook hands with his guests,
and the same dryness seemed to be in his palm and
throat, as he huskily asked each to take a chair. Con
rad's coat was of modern texture and cut, and was
buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience
within its lapels; he met March with his entreating
smile, and he seemed no more capable of coping with
the situation than his father. They both waited for
Fulkerson, who went about and did his best to keep
life in the party during the half-hour that passed be
fore they sat down at dinner. Beaton stood gloomily
aloof, as if waiting to be approached on the right basis
before yielding an inch of his ground ; Colonel Wood-
burn, awaiting the moment when he could sally out on
his hobby, kept himself intrenched within the dignity
of a gentleman, and examined askance the figure of
old Lindau as he stared about the room, with his fine
head up, and his empty sleeve dangling over his wrist.
March felt obliged to him for wearing a new coat in
the midst of that hostile luxury, and he was glad to
see Dryfoos make up to him and begin to talk with
him, as if he wished to show him particular respect,
though it might have been because he was less afraid
of him than of the others. He heard Lindau saying,
" Boat, the name is Choarman ?" and Dryfoos begin
ning to explain his Pennsylvania Dutch origin, and he
suffered himself, with a sigh of relief, to fall into talk
with Kendricks, who was always pleasant ; he was will-

382

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

ing to talk about something besides himself, and had
no opinions that he was not ready to hold in abeyance
for the time being out of kindness to others. In that
group of impassioned individualities, March felt him
a refuge and comfort — with his harmless dilettante in
tention of some day writing a novel, and his belief that
he was meantime collecting material for it.

Fulkerson, while breaking the ice for the whole
company, was mainly engaged in keeping Colonel
Woodburn thawed out. He took Kendricks away from
March and presented him to the colonel as a person
who, like himself, was looking into social conditions;
he put one hand on Kendricks's shoulder, and one on
the colonel's, and made some flattering joke, apparent
ly at the expense of the young fellow, and then left
them. March heard Kendricks protest in vain, and the
colonel say, gravely : " I do not wonder, sir, that these
things interest you. They constitute a problem which
society must solve or which will dissolve society," and
he knew from that formula, which the colonel had once
used with him, that he was laying out a road for the
exhibition of the hobby's paces later.

Fulkerson came back to March, who had turned tow
ard Conrad Dryfoos, and said, " If we don't get this
thing going pretty soon, it '11 be the death of me," and
just then Frescobalcli's butler came in and announced
to Dryfoos that dinner was served. The old man
looked toward Fulkerson with a troubled glance, as if
he did not know what to do ; he made a gesture to touch
Lindau's elbow. Fulkerson called out, " Here's Colo
nel Woodburn, Mr. Dryfoos," as if Dryfoos were
looking for him; and he set the example of what he
was to do by taking Lindau's arm himself. " Mr.
Lindau is going to sit at my end of the table, along
side of March. Stand not upon the order of your

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

going, gentlemen, but fall in at once." He contrived
to get Dryfoos and the colonel before him, and he let
March follow with Kendricks. Conrad came last with
Beaton, who had been turning over the music at the
piano, and chafing inwardly at the whole affair. At
the table Colonel Woodburn was placed on Dryfoos's
right, and March on his left. March sat on Fulker-
son's right, with Lindau next him ; and the young men
occupied the other seats.

" Put you next to March, Mr. Lindau," said Ful-
kerson, " so you can begin to put Apollinaris in his
champagne-glass at the right moment; you know his
little weakness of old ; sorry to say it's grown on him."

March laughed with kindly acquiescence in Fulker-
son's wish to start the gayety, and Lindau patted him
on the shoulder. " I know hiss veakness. If he liges
a class of vine, it iss begause his loaf ingludes efen
hiss enemy, as Shakespeare galled it."

" Ah, but Shakespeare couldn't have been thinking
of champagne," said Kendricks.

" I suppose, sir," Colonel Woodburn interposed,
with lofty courtesy, " champagne could hardly have
been known in his day."

" I suppose not, colonel," returned the younger man,
deferentially. " He seemed to think that sack and
sugar might be a fault; but he didn't mention cham
pagne."

" Perhaps he felt there was no question about that,"
suggested Beaton, who then felt that he had not done
himself justice in the sally.

" I wonder just when champagne did come in," said
March.

" I know when it ought to come in," said Fulkerson.
" Before the soup !"

They all laughed, and gave themselves the air of

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

drinking champagne out of tumblers every day, as
men like to Jo. Dryfoos listened uneasily; he did
not quite understand the allusions, though he knew
what Shakespeare was, well enough; Conrad's face
expressed a gentle deprecation of joking on such a
subject, but he said nothing.

The talk ran on briskly through the dinner. The
young men tossed the ball back and forth; they made
some wild shots, but they kept it going, and they laugh
ed when they were hit. The wine loosed Colonel Wood-
burn's tongue ; he became very companionable with the
young fellows; with the feeling that a literary dinner
ought to have a didactic scope, he praised Scott and
Addison as the only authors fit to form the minds of
gentlemen.

Kendricks agreed with him, but wished to add the
name of Flaubert as a master of style. " Style, you
know," he added, " is the man."

" Very true, sir ; you are quite right, sir," the colonel
assented; he wondered who Flaubert was.

Beaton praised Baudelaire and Maupassant ; he said
these were the masters. He recited some lurid verses
from Baudelaire; Lindau pronounced them a disgrace
to human nature, and gave a passage from Victor Hugo
on Louis Napoleon, with his heavy German accent, and
then he quoted Schiller. " Ach, boat that iss peaudi-
f ool ! Not zo ?" he demanded of March.

" Yes, beautiful ; but, of course, you know I think
there's nobody like Heine !"

Lindau threw back his great old head and laughed,
showing a want of teeth under his mustache. He put
his hand on March's back. " This poy — he wass a
poy den — wass so gracy to pekin reading Heine that
he gommence with the tictionary bevore he knows any

crammar, and ve bick it out vort by vort togeder."

385

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" He was a pretty cay poy in those days, heigh,
Lindau?" asked Fulkerson, burlesquing the old man's
accent, with an impudent wink that made Lindau him
self laugh. " But in the dark ages, I mean, there in
Indianapolis. Just how long ago did you old codgers
meet there, anyway?" Fulkerson saw the restiveness
in Dryfoos's eye at the purely literary course the talk
had taken; he had intended it to lead up that way to
business, to Every Oilier Week; but he saw that it was
leaving Dryfoos too far out, and he wished to get it on
the personal ground, where everybody is at home.

" Ledt me zee," mused Lindau. " Wass it in fifty-
nine or zixty, Passil ? Idt wass a year or dwo pefore
the war proke oudt, anyway."

" Those were exciting times," said Dryfoos, making
his first entry into the general talk. " I went down
to Indianapolis with the first company from our place,
and I saw the red-shirts pouring in everywhere. They
had a song,

" Oh, never mind the weather, but git over double trouble,
For we're bound for the land of Canaan."

The fellows locked arms and went singin' it up and
down four or five abreast in the moonlight ; crowded
everybody else off the sidewalk."

" I remember, I remember," said. Lindau, nodding
his head slowly up and down. " A coodt many off
them nefer gome pack from that landt of Ganaan, Mr.
Dryfoos?"

" You're right, Mr. Lindau. But I reckon it was
worth it — the country we've got now. Here, young
man!" He caught the arm of the waiter who was
going round with the champagne bottle. " Fill up Mr.
Lindau's glass, there. I want to drink the health of

386

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

those old times with him. Here's to your empty sleeve,
Mr. Lindau. God bless it ! No offence to you, Colonel
Woodburn," said Dryfoos, turning to him before ho
drank.

" Not at all, sir, not at all," said the colonel. " I
will drink with you, if you will permit me."

" We'll all drink — standing !" cried Fulkerson.
" Help March to get up, somebody ! Fill high the
bowl with Samian Apollinaris for Coonrod! Now,
then, hurrah for Lindau !"

They cheered, and hammered on the table with the
butts of their knife-handles. Lindau remained seated.
The tears came into his eyes ; he said, " I thank you,
chendlemen," and hiccoughed.

" I'd V went into the war myself," said Dryfoos,
" but I was raisin' a family of young children, and I
didn't see how I could leave my farm. But I helped
to fill up the quota at every call, and when the vol
unteering stopped I went round with the subscription
paper myself; and we offered as good bounties as
any in the State. My substitute was killed in one
of the last skirmishes — in fact, after Lee's surren
der — and I've took care of his family, more or less,
ever since."

" By-the-way, March," said Fulkerson, " what sort
of an idea would it be to have a good war story — might
be a serial — in the magazine ? The war has never fully
panned out in fiction yet. It was used a good deal just
after it was over, and then it was dropped. I think
it's time to take it up again. I believe it would be
a card."

It was running in March's mind that Dryfoos had
an old rankling shame in his heart for not having gone
into the war, and that he had often made that explana
tion of his course without having ever been satisfied
26 387

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with it. He felt sorry for him; the fact seemed pa
thetic ; it suggested a dormant nobleness in the man.

Beaton was saying to Fulkerson : " You might get
a series of sketches by substitutes; the substitutes
haven't been much heard from in the war literature.
How would ' The Autobiography of a Substitute ' do ?
You might follow him up to the moment he was killed
in the other man's place, and inquire whether he had
any right to the feelings of a hero when he was only
hired in the place of one. Might call it ' The Career
of a Deputy Hero.' '

" I fancy," said March, " that there was a great
deal of mixed motive in the men who went into the
war as well as in those who kept out of it. We canon
ized all that died or suffered in it, but some of them
must have been self-seeking and low-minded, like men
in other vocations." He found himself saying this in
Dryf oos's behalf ; the old man looked at him gratefully
at first, he thought, and then suspiciously.

Lindau turned his head toward him and said : " You
are righdt, Passil; you are righdt. I haf zeen on the
fieldt of pattle the voarst eggsipitions of human paseness
— chelousy, fanity, ecodistic bridte. I haf zeen men in
the face off death itself goiferned by motifes as low as
— as pusiness motifes."

" Well," said Fulkerson, " it would be a grand thing
for Every Other Week if we could get some of those
ideas worked up into a series. It would make a lot
of talk."

Colonel Woodburn ignored him in saying, " I think,
Major Lindau —

" High brif ate ; pref et gorporal," the old man in
terrupted, in rejection of the title.

Kendricks laughed and said, with a glance of appre
ciation at Lindau, " Brevet corporal is good."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Colonel Woodburn frowned a little, and passed over
the joke. " I think Mr. Lindau is right. Such ex
hibitions were common to both sides, though if you
gentlemen will pardon me for saying so, I think they
were less frequent on ours. We were fighting more
immediately for existence : we were fewer than you
were, and we knew it; we felt more intensely that if
each were not for all, then none was for any."

The colonel's words made their impression. Dry-
foos said, with authority, " That is so."

" Colonel Woodburn," Fulkerson called out, " if
you'll work up those ideas into a short paper — say,
three thousand words — I'll engage to make March
take it."

The colonel went on without replying : " But Mr.
Lindau is right in characterizing some of the motives
that led men to the cannon's mouth as no higher than
business motives, and his comparison is the most forci
ble that he could have used. I was very much struck
by it."

The hobby was out, the colonel was in the saddle
with so firm a seat that no effort sufficed to dislodge
him. The dinner went on from course to course with
barbaric profusion, and from time to time Fulkerson
tried to bring the talk back to Every Other Week.
But perhaps because that was only the ostensible and
not the real object of the dinner, which was to bring
a number of men together under Dryfoos's roof, and
make them the witnesses of his splendor, make them
feel the power of his wealth, Fulkerson's attempts
failed. The colonel showed how commercialism was
the poison at the heart of our national life; how we
began as a simple, agricultural people, who had fled
to these shores with the instinct, divinely implanted, of
building a state such as the sun never shone upon be-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

fore; how we had conquered the wilderness and the
savage ; how we had flung off, in our struggle with the
mother-country, the trammels of tradition and prece
dent, and had settled down, a free nation, to the prac
tice of the arts of peace ; how the spirit of commercial
ism had stolen insidiously upon us, and the infernal
impulse of competition had embroiled us in a perpetual
warfare of interests, developing the worst passions of
our nature, and teaching us to trick and betray and
destroy one another in the strife for money, till now
that impulse had exhausted itself, and we found com
petition gone and the whole economic problem in the
hands of monopolies — the Standard Oil Company, the
Sugar Trust, the Rubber Trust, and what not. And
now what was the next thing? Affairs could not re
main as they were ; it was impossible ; and what was
the next thing ?"

The company listened for the main part silently.
Dryfoos tried to grasp the idea of commercialism as
the colonel seemed to hold it; he conceived of it as
something like the dry-goods business on a vast scale,
and he knew he had never been in that. He did not
like to hear competition called infernal ; he had always
supposed it was something sacred ; but he approved of
what Colonel Woodburn said of the Standard Oil Com
pany; it was all true; the Standard Oil has squeezed
Dryfoos once, and made him sell it a lot of oil-wells
by putting down the price of oil so low in that region
that he lost money on every barrel he pumped.

All the rest listened silently, except Lindau; at
every point the colonel made against the present con
dition of things he said more and more fiercely, " You
are righdt, you are righdt." His eyes glowed, his hand
played with his knife-hilt. When the colonel demand
ed, " And what is the next thing ?" he threw himself

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

forward, and repeated : " Yes, sir ! What is the next
thing?"

" Natural gas, by thunder !" shouted Fulkerson.

One of the waiters had profited by Lindau's posture
to lean over him and put down in the middle of the
table a structure in white sugar. It expressed Fresco-
baldi's conception of a derrick, and a touch of nature
had been added in the flame of brandy, which burned
luridly up from a small pit in the centre of the base,
and represented the gas in combustion as it issued from
the ground. Fulkerson burst into a roar of laughter
with the words that recognized Frescobaldi's personal
tribute to Dryfoos. Everybody rose and peered over at
the thing, while he explained the work of sinking a
gas-well, as he had already explained it to Frescobaldi.
In the midst of his lecture he caught sight of the caterer
himself, where he stood in the pantry doorway, smiling
with an artist's anxiety for the effect of his master
piece.

" Come in, come in, Frescobaldi ! We want to con
gratulate you," Fulkerson called to him. " Here,
gentlemen ! Here's Frescobaldi's health."

They all drank ; and Frescobaldi, smiling brilliantly
and rubbing his hands as he bowed right and left, per
mitted himself to say to Dryfoos : " You are please ;
no? You like?"

" First-rate, first-rate !" said the old man ; but when
the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had
sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulker
son, " I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well,
or the derrick wouldn't look quite so nice and clean."

" Yes," Fulkerson answered, " and that ain't quite
the style — that little wiggly-waggly blue flame — that the
gas acts when you touch off a good vein of it. This
might do for weak gas " ; and he went on to explain ;

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" They call it weak gas when they tap it two or three
hundred feet down; and anybody can sink a well in
his back yard and get enough gas to light and heat his
house. I remember one fellow that had it blazing up
from a pipe through a flower-bed, just like a jet of
water from a fountain. My, my, ray! You fel — you
gentlemen — ought to go out and see that country, all of
you. Wish we could torpedo this well, Mr. Dryfoos,
and let 'em see how it works ! Mind that one you tor
pedoed for me? You know, when they sink a well,"
he went on to the company, " they can't always most
generally sometimes tell whether they're goin' to get
gas or oil or salt water. Why, when they first began
to bore for salt water out on the Kanawha, back about
the beginning of the century, they used to get gas now
and then, and then they considered it a failure ; they
called a gas-well a blower, and give it up in disgust;
the time wasn't ripe for gas yet. Now they bore away
sometimes till they get half-way to China, and don't
seem to strike anything worth speaking of. Then they
put a dynamite torpedo down in the well and explode
it. They have a little bar of iron that they call a
Go-devil, and they just drop it down on the business
end of the torpedo, and then stand from under, if you
please! You hear a noise, and in about half a minute
you begin to se-s one, and it begins to rain oil and mud
and salt water and rocks and pitchforks and adoptive
citizens ; and when it clears up the derrick's painted —
got a coat on that '11 wear in any climate. That's what
our honored host meant. Generally get some visiting
lady, when there's one round, to drop the Go - devil.
But that day we had to put up with Conrad here.
They offered to let me drop it, but I declined. I told
'em I hadn't much practice with Go-devils in the news
paper syndicate business, and I wasn't very well my-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

self, anyway. Astonishing," Eulkerson continued, with
the air of relieving his explanation by an anecdote,
" how reckless they get using dynamite when they're
torpedoing Avells. We stopped at one place where a
fellow was handling the cartridges pretty freely, and
Mr. Dryfoos happened to caution him a little, and that
ass came up with one of 'em in his hand, and began
to pound it on the buggy-wheel to show us how safe
it was. I turned green, I was so scared ; but Mr. Dry
foos kept his color, and kind of coaxed the fellow till
he quit. You could see he was the fool kind, that if
you tried to stop him he'd keep on hammering that
cartridge, just to show that it wouldn't explode, till he
blew you into Kingdom Come. When we 'got him to
go away, Mr. Dryfoos drove up to his foreman. e Pay
Sheney off, and discharge him on the spot,' says he.
' He's too safe a man to have round ; he knows too
much about dynamite.' I never saw anybody so
cool."

Dryfoos modestly dropped his head under Fulker-
son's flattery and, without lifting it, turned his eyes
toward Colonel Woodburn. " I had all sorts of men to
deal with in developing my property out there, but I
had very little trouble with them, generally speaking."

" Ah, ah ! you f oundt the laboring-man reasonable
— dractable — tocile ?" Lindau put in. , ,

" Yes, generally speaking," Dryfoos answered.
" They mostly knew which side of their bread was
buttered. I did have one little difficulty at one
time. It happened to be when Mr. Fulkerson was
out there. Some of the men tried to form a union —

"No, no!" cried Fulkerson. "Let me tell that!
I know you wouldn't do yourself justice, Mr. Dry
foos, and I want 'em to know how a strike can be
managed, if you take it in time. You see, some of

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

those fellows got a notion that there ought to be a
union among the working-men to keep up wages, and
dictate to the employers, and Mr. Dryfoos's foreman
was the ringleader in the business. They understood
pretty well that as soon as he found it out that fore
man would walk the plank, and so they watched out
till they thought they had Mr. Dryfoos just where they
wanted him — everything on the keen jump, and every
man worth his weight in diamonds — and then they
came to him, and told him to sign a promise to keep
that foreman to the end of the season, or till he was
through with the work on the Dryfoos and Hendry
Addition, under penalty of having them all knock off.
Mr. Dryfoos smelled a mouse, but he couldn't tell
where the mouse was; he saw that they did have him,
and he signed, of course. There wasn't anything really
against the fellow, anyway; he was a first-rate man,
and he did his duty every time; only he'd got some
of those ideas into his head, and they turned it. Mr.
Dryfoos signed, and then he laid low."

March saw Lindau listening with a mounting in
tensity, and heard him murmur in German, " Shame
ful ! shameful!"

Fulkerson went on : " Well, it wasn't long before
they began to show their hand, but Mr. Dryfoos kept
dark. He agreed to everything; there never was such
an obliging capitalist before ; there wasn't a thing they
asked of him that he didn't do, with the greatest of
pleasure, and all went merry as a marriage-bell till one
morning a whole gang of fresh men marched into the
Dryfoos and Hendry Addition, under the escort of a
dozen Pinkertons with repeating rifles at half - cock,
and about fifty fellows found themselves out of a job.
You never saw such a mad set."

" Pretty neat," said Kendricks, who looked at the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

affair purely from an aesthetic point of view. " Such a
coup as that would tell tremendously in a play."

" That was vile treason," said Lindau in German to
March. " He's an infamous traitor ! I cannot stay
here. I must go."

He struggled to rise, while March held him by the
coat, and implored him under his voice : " For Heav
en's sake, don't, Lindau ! You owe it to yourself
not to make a scene, if you come here." Some
thing in it all affected him comically; he could not
help laughing.

The others were discussing the matter, and seemed
not to have noticed Lindau, who controlled himself
and sighed : " You are right. I must have patience."

Beaton was saying to Dryfoos, " Pity your Pinker-
tons couldn't have given them a few shots before they
left."

" No, that wasn't necessary," said Dryfoos. " I
succeeded in breaking up the union. I entered into
an agreement with other parties not to employ any
man who would not swear that he was non-union. If
they had attempted violence, of course they could have
been shot. But there was no fear of that. Those fel
lows can always be depended upon to cut one another's
throats in the long run."

" But sometimes," said Colonel Woodburn, who had
been watching throughout for a chance to mount his
hobby again, " they make a good deal of trouble first.
How was it in the great railroad strike of '77 ?"

" Well, I guess there was a little trouble that time,
colonel," said Fulkerson. " But the men that under
take to override the laws and paralyze the industries
of a country like this generally get left in the end."

" Yes, sir, generally ; and up to a certain point, al
ways. But it's the exceptional that is apt to happen,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

as well as the unexpected. And a little reflection will
convince any gentleman here that there is always a
danger of the exceptional in your system. The fact
is, those fellows have the game in their own hands
already. A strike of the whole body of the Brother
hood of Engineers alone would starve out the entire
Atlantic seaboard in a week; labor insurrection could
make head at a dozen given points, and your govern
ment couldn't move a man over the roads without the
help of the engineers."

" That is so," said Kendrick, struck by the dramatic
character of the conjecture. He imagined a fiction
dealing with the situation as something already ac
complished.

" Why don't some fellow do the Battle of Dorking
act with that thing ?" said Fulkerson. " It would be
a card."

" Exactly what I was thinking, Mr. Fulkerson," said
Kendricks.

Fulkerson laughed. " Telepathy — clear case of
mind - transference. Better see March, here, about
it. I'd like to have it in Every Other Week. It
would make talk."

" Perhaps it might set your people to thinking as
well as talking," said the colonel.

" Well, sir," said Dryfoos, setting his lips so tightly
together that his imperial stuck straight outward, " if
I had my way, there wouldn't be any Brotherhood of
Engineers, nor any other kind of labor union in the
whole country."

"What!" shouted Lindau. "You would sobbress
the imionss of the voarking-men ?"

" Yes, I would."

" And what would you do with the unionss of
the gabidalists — the drosts — and gompines, and boolss ?

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Would you dake the righdt from one and gif it to the
odder?"

" Yes, sir, I would/' said Dryfoos, with a wicked
look at him.

Lindau was about to roar back at him with some
furious protest, but March put his hand on his shoul
der imploringly, and Lindau turned to him to say in
German : " But it is infamous — infamous ! What kind
of man is this? Who is he? He has the heart of a
tyrant."

Colonel Woodburn cut in. " You couldn't do that,
Mr. Dryfoos, under your system. And if you at
tempted it, with your conspiracy laws, and that kind
of thing, it might bring the climax sooner than you
expected. Your commercialized society has built its
house on the sands. It will have to go. But I should
be sorry if it went before its time."

" You are righdt, sir," said Lindau. " It would be
a bity. I hobe it will last till it feelss its rottenness,
like Herodt. Boat, when its hour gomes, when it trops
to bieces with the veight off its own gorrubtion — what
then ?"

" It's not to be supposed that a system of things like
this can drop to pieces of its own accord, like the old
Kepublic of Venice," said the colonel. " But when the
last vestige of commercial society is gone, then we can
begin to build anew; and we shall build upon the
central idea, not of the false liberty you now worship,
but of responsibility — responsibility. The enlightened,
the moneyed, the cultivated class shall be responsible
to the central authority — emperor, duke, president ; the
name does not matter — for the national expense and
the national defence, and it shall be responsible to the
working-classes of all kinds for homes and lands and
implements, and the opportunity to labor at all times.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

The working-classes shall be responsible to the leisure
class for the support of its dignity in peace, and shall
be subject to its command in war. The rich shall
warrant the poor against planless production and the
ruin that now follows, against danger from without
and famine from within, and the poor —

"No, no, no!7' shouted Lindau. "The State shall
do that — the whole beople. The men who voark shall
have and shall eat; and the men that will not voark,
they shall sdarfe. But no man need sdarfe. He will
go to the State, and the State will see that he haf voark,
and that he haf foodt. All the roadts and mills and
mines and landts shall be the beople's and be ron by
the beople for the beople. There shall be no rich and
no boor ; and there shall not be war any more, for what
bower wouldt dare to addack a beople bound togeder
in a broderhood like that?"

" Lion and lamb act," said Fulkerson, not well know
ing, after so much champagne, what words he was
using.

No one noticed him, and Colonel Woodburn said
coldly to Lindau, " You are talking paternalism, sir."

" And you are dalking feutalism !" retorted the old
man.

The colonel did not reply. A silence ensued, which
no one broke till Fulkerson said : " Well, now, look
here. If either one of these millenniums was brought
about, by force of arms, or otherwise, what would be
come of Every Other Week? Who would want March
for an editor ? How would Beaton sell his pictures ?
Who would print Mr. Kendricks's little society verses
and short stories ? What would become of Conrad and
his good works ?" Those named grinned in support of
Fulkerson's diversion, but Lindau and the colonel did
not speak ; Dryfoos looked down at his plate, f rowning.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

A waiter came round with cigars, and Fulkerson took
one. " Ah," he said, as he bit off the end, and leaned
over to the emblematic masterpiece, where the brandy
was still feebly flickering, " I wonder if there's enough
natural gas left to light my cigar." His effort put the
flame out and knocked the derrick over; it broke in
fragments on the table. Fulkerson cackled over the
ruin : " I wonder if all Moffitt will look that way after
labor and capital have fought it out together. I hope
this ain't ominous of anything personal, Dryfoos ?"

" I'll take the risk of it," said the old man, harshly.

He rose mechanically, and Fulkerson said to Fresco-
baldi's man, " You can bring us the coffee in the
library."

The talk did not recover itself there. Lindau would
not sit down; he refused coffee, and dismissed himself
with a haughty bow to the company; Colonel Wood-
burn shook hands elaborately all round, when he had
smoked his cigar; the others followed him. It seemed
to March that his own good-night from Dryfoos was
dry and cold.

VII

MARCH met Fulkerson on the steps of the office
next morning, when he arrived rather later than his
wont. Fulkerson did not show any of the signs of
suffering from the last night's pleasure which painted
themselves in March's face. He flirted his hand gayly
in the air, and said, " How's your poor head ?" and
broke into a knowing laugh. " You don't seem to have
got up with the lark this morning. The old gentle
man is in there with Conrad, as bright as a biscuit;
he's beat you down. Well, we did have a good time,
didn't we? And old Lindau and the colonel, didn't
they have a good time ? I don't suppose they ever had
a chance before to give their theories quite so much
air. Oh, my! how they did ride over us! I'm just
going down to see Beaton about the cover of the Chris-
mas number. I think we ought to try it in three or
four colors, if we are going to observe the day at all."
He was off before March could pull himself together
to ask what Dryfoos wanted at the office at that hour
of the morning; he always came in the afternoon on
his way up-town.

The fact of his presence renewed the sinister mis
givings with which March had parted from him the
night before, but Fulkerson's cheerfulness seemed to
gainsay them ; afterward March did not know whether
to attribute this mood to the slipperiness that he was
aware of at times in Fulkerson, or to a cynical anruse-

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

ment he might have felt at leaving him alone to the
old man, who mounted to his room shortly after March
had reached it.

A sort of dumb anger showed itself in his face; his
jaw was set so firmly that he did not seem ahle at once
to open it. He asked, without the ceremonies of greet
ing, " What does that one-armed Dutchman do on this
book ?"

" What does he do ?" March echoed, as people are
apt to do with a question that is mandatory and of
fensive.

" Yes, sir, what does he do ? Does he write for it ?"

" I suppose you mean Lindau," said March. He
saw no reason for refusing to answer Dryfoos's de
mand, and he decided to ignore its terms. " No, he
doesn't write for it in the usual way. He translates
for it; he examines the foreign magazines, and draws
my attention to anything he thinks of interest. But
I told you about this before — "

" I know what you told me, well enough. And I
know what he is. He is a red-mouthed labor agitator.
He's one of those foreigners that come here from places
where they've never had a decent meal's victuals in
their lives, and as soon as they get their stomachs full,
they begin to make trouble between our people and
their hands. There's where the strikes come from, and
the unions and the secret societies. They come here
and break our Sabbath, and teach their atheism. They
ought to be hung! Let 'em go back if they don't like
it over here. They want to ruin the country."

March could not help smiling a little at the words,
which came fast enough now in the hoarse staccato of
Dryfoos's passion. " I don't know whom you mean
by they, generally speaking; but I had the impression
that poor old Lindau had once done his best to save the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

country. I don't always like his way of talking, but
I know that he is one of the truest and kindest souls in
the world ; and he is no more an atheist than I am. He
is my friend, and I can't allow him to be misunder
stood."

" I don't care what he is," Dryfoos broke out, " I
won't have him round. He can't have any more work
from this office. I want you to stop it. I want you
to turn him off."

March was standing at his desk, as he had risen to
receive Dryfoos when he entered. He now sat down,
and began to open his letters.

" Do you hear ?" the old man roared at him. " I
want you to turn him off."

" Excuse me, Mr. Dryfoos," said March, succeed
ing in an effort to speak calmly, " I don't know you,
in such a matter as this. My arrangements as editor
of Every Other Week were made with Mr. Fulkerson.
I have always listened to any suggestion he has had to
make."

" I don't care for Mr. Fulkerson ! He has nothing
to do with it," retorted Dryfoos ; but he seemed a little
daunted by March's position.

" He has everything to do with it as far as I am
concerned," March answered, with a steadiness that he
did not feel. " I know that you are the owner of the
periodical, but I can't receive any suggestion from you,
for the reason that I have given. Nobody but Mr.
Fulkerson has any right to talk with me about its
management."

Dryfoos glared at him for a moment, and demanded^
threateningly : " Then you say you won't turn that old
loafer off ? You say that I have got to keep on paying
my money out to buy beer for a man that would cut

my throat if he got the chance ?"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I say nothing at all, Mr. Dryfoos," March an
swered. The blood came into his face, and he added:
" But I will say that if you speak again of Mr. Lindau
in those terms, one of us must leave this room. I will
not hear you."

Dryfoos looked at him with astonishment; then he
struck his hat down on his head, and stamped out of
the room and down the stairs; and a vague pity came
into March's heart that was not altogether for himself.
He might be the greater sufferer in the end, but he
was sorry to have got the better of that old man for
the moment ; and he felt ashamed of the anger into
which Dryfoos's anger had surprised him. He knew
he could not say too much in defence of Lindau's gen
erosity and unselfishness, and he had not attempted to
defend him as a political economist. He could not have
taken any ground in relation to Dryfoos but that which
he held, and he felt satisfied that he was right in re
fusing to receive instructions or commands from him.
Yet somehow he was not satisfied with the whole affair,
and not merely because his present triumph threatened
his final advantage, but because he felt that in his heat
he had hardly done justice to Dryfoos's rights in the
matter; it did not quite console him to reflect that
Dryfoos had himself made it impossible. He was
tempted to go home and tell his wife what had hap
pened, and begin his preparations for the future at
once. But he resisted this weakness and kept me
chanically about his work, opening the letters and the
manuscripts before him with that curious double action
of the mind common in men of vivid imaginations. It
was a relief when Conrad Dryfoos, having apparently
waited to make sure that his father would not return,
came up from the counting - room and looked in on
March with a troubled face.
27 403

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

" Mr. March/7 he began, " I hope father hasn't been
saying anything to you that you can't overlook. I
know he was very much excited, and when he is ex
cited he is apt to say things that he is sorry for."

The apologetic attitude taken for Dryfoos, so differ
ent from any attitude the peremptory old man would
have conceivably taken for himself, made March smile.
" Oh no. I fancy the boot is on the other leg. I sus
pect I've said some things your father can't overlook,
Conrad." He called the young man by his Christian
name partly to distinguish him from his father, partly
from the infection of Fulkerson's habit, and partly
from a kindness for him that seemed naturally to ex
press itself in that way.

" I know he didn't sleep last night, after you all
went away," Conrad pursued, " and of course that
made him more irritable ; and he was tried a good deal
by some of the things that Mr. Lindau said."

" I was tried a good deal myself," said March.
" Lindau ought never to have been there."

" No." Conrad seemed only partially to assent.

" I told Mr. Fulkerson so. I warned him that
Lindau would be apt to break out in some way. It
wasn't just to him, and it wasn't just to your father,
to ask him."

" Mr. Fulkerson had a good motive," Conrad gently
urged. " He did it because he hurt his feelings that
day about the pension."

" Yes, but it was a mistake. He knew that Lindau
was inflexible about his principles, as he calls them,
and that one of his first principles is to denounce the
rich in season and out of season. I don't remember
just what he said last night; and I really thought I'd
kept him from breaking out in the most offensive way.
But your father seems very much incensed."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Yes, I know," said Conrad.

" Of course, I don't agree with Lindau. I think
there are as many good, kind, just people among the
rich as there are among the poor, and that they are
as generous and helpful. But Lindau has got hold of
one of those partial truths that hurt worse than the
whole truth, and — "

" Partial truth !" the young man interrupted.
u Didn't the Saviour himself say, ' How hardly shall
they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ' ?"

" Why, bless my soul !" cried March. " Do you
agree with Lindau ?"

"•' I agree with the Lord Jesus Christ," said the
young man, solemnly, and a strange light of fanati
cism, of exaltation, came into his wide blue eyes.
" And I believe He meant the kingdom of heaven
upon this earth, as well as in the skies."

March threw himself back in his chair and looked
at him with a kind of stupefaction, in which his eye
wandered to the doorway, where he saw Fulkerson
standing, it seemed to him a long time, before he heard
him saying : " Hello, hello ! What's the row ? Conrad
pitching into you on old Lindau's account, too ?"

The young man turned, and, after a glance at Ful-
kerson's light, smiling face, went out, as if in his pres
ent mood he could not bear the contact of that persiflant
spirit.

March felt himself getting provisionally very angry
again. " Excuse me, Fulkerson, but did you know
when you went out what Mr. Dryfoos wanted to see
me for?"

" Well, no, I didn't exactly," said Fulkerson, taking
his usual seat on a chair and looking over the back of
it at March. " I saw he was on his ear about some
thing, and I thought I'd better not monkey with him

405

A HAZARD OF NEW FOBTUNES

much. I supposed he was going to bring you to book
about old Lindau, somehow." Fulkerson broke into a
laugh.

March remained serious. " Mr. Dryfoos," he said,
willing to let the simple statement have its own weight
with Fulkerson, and nothing more, " came in here and
ordered me to discharge Lindau from his employment
on the magazine — to turn him. off, as he put it."

" Did he ?" asked Fulkerson, with unbroken cheer
fulness. " The old man is business, every time. Well,
I suppose you can easily get somebody else to do Lin-
daii's work for you. This town is just running over
with half-starved linguists. What did you say ?"

"What did I say?" March echoed. "Look here,
Fulkerson ; you may regard this as a joke, but I don't.
I'm not used to being spoken to as if I were the fore
man of a shop, and told to discharge a sensitive and
cultivated man like Lindau, as if he were a drunken
mechanic ; and if that's your idea of me — "

" Oh, hello, now, March ! You mustn't mind the
old man's way. lie don't mean anything by it — he
don't Icnow any better, if you come to that."

" Then / know better," said March. " I refused to
receive any instructions from Mr. Dryfoos, whom I
don't know in my relations with Every Other Week,,
and I referred him to you."

"You did?" Fulkerson whistled. "He owns the
thing !"

" I don't care who owns the thing," said March.
" My negotiations were with you alone from the begin
ning, and I leave this matter with you. What do you
wish done about Lindau ?"

" Oh, better let the old fool drop," said Fulkerson.
" He'll light on his feet somehow, and it will save a
lot of rumpus."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" And if I decline to let him drop ?"

" Oh, come, now, March ; don't do that/7 Fulkerson
began.

" If I decline to let him drop," March repeated,
" what will yon do ?"

" I'll be dogged if I know what I'll do," said Ful
kerson. " I hope you won't take that stand. If the
old man went so far as to speak to you about it, his
mind is made up, and we might as well knock under
first as last."

" And do you mean to say that you would not stand
by me in what I considered my duty — in a matter of
principle ?"

" Why, of course, March," said Fulkerson, coaxing-
ly, " I mean to do the right thing. But Dryfoos owns
the magazine —

" He doesn't own me" said March, rising. " He
has made the little mistake of speaking to me as if
he did ; and when " —March put on his hat and took
his overcoat down from its nail — " when you bring me
his apologies, or come to say that, having failed to make
him understand they were necessary, you are prepared
to stand by me, I will come back to this desk. Other
wise my resignation is at your service."

He started toward the door, and Fulkerson inter
cepted him. " Ah, now, look here, March ! Don't do
that! Hang it all, don't you see where it leaves me?
Now, you just sit down a minute and talk it over. I
can make you see — I can show you — Why, confound
the old Dutch beer-buzzer! Twenty of him wouldn't
be worth the trouble he's makin'. Let him go, and the
old man '11 come round in time."

" I don't think we've understood each other exactly,
Mr. Fulkerson," said March, very haughtily. " Per
haps we never can ; but I'll leave you to think it out,"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

He pushed on, and Eulkerson stood aside to let him
pass, with a dazed look and a mechanical movement.
There was something comic in his rueful bewilderment
to March, who was tempted to smile, but he said to
himself that he had as much reason to be unhappy as
Fulkerson, and he did not smile. His indignation kept
him hot in his purpose to suffer any consequence rather
submit to the dictation of a man like Dryfoos ; he
felt keenly the degradation of his connection with him,
/ and all his resentment of Fulkerson's original uncandor
/ returned; at the same time his heart ached with fore
boding. It was not merely the work in which he had
constantly grown happier that he saw taken from him ;
but he felt the misery of the man who stakes the se
curity and plenty and peace of home upon some cast,
and knows that losing will sweep from him most that
most men find sweet and pleasant in life. He faced the
fact, which no good man can front without terror, that
he was risking the support of his family, and for a point
of pride, of honor, which perhaps he had no right to
consider in view of the possible adversity. He realized,
as every hireling must, no matter how skilfully or
gracefully the tie is contrived for his wearing, that
he belongs to another, whose will is his law. His in
dignation was shot with abject impulses to go back
and tell Fulkerson that it was all right, and that he
gave up. To end the anguish of his struggle he quick
ened his steps, so that he found he was reaching home
almost at a run.

VIII

HE must have made more clatter than he supposed
with his key at the apartment door, for his wife had
come to let him in when he flung it open. " Why,
Basil," she said, " what's brought you back ? Are you
sick ? You're all pale. Well, no wonder ! This is the
last of Mr. Fulkerson's dinners you shall go to. You're
not strong enough for it, and your stomach will be all
out of order for a week. How hot you are ! and in a
drip of perspiration ! Now you'll be sick." She took
his hat away, which hung dangling in his hand,
and pushed him into a chair with tender impatience.
" What is the matter ? Has anything happened 2"

" Everything has happened," he said, getting his
voice after one or two husky endeavors for it; and
then he poured out a confused and huddled statement
of the case, from which she only got at the situation
by prolonged cross-questioning.

At the end she said, " I knew Lindau would get you
into trouble."

This cut March to the heart. " Isabel !" he cried,
reproachfully.

" Oh, I know," she retorted, and the tears began
to come. " I don't wonder you didn't want to say
much to me about that dinner at breakfast. I noticed
it; but I thought you were just dull, and so I didn't
insist. I wish I had, now. If you had told me what
Lindau had said, I should have known what would
have come of it, and I could have advised you — "

400

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Would you have advised me," March demanded,
curiously, " to submit to bullying like that, and meekly
consent to commit an act of cruelty against a man who
had once been such a friend to me ?"

" It was an unlucky day when you met him. I sup
pose we shall have to go. And just when we had got
used to New York, and begun to like it. I don't know
where we shall go now; Boston isn't like home any
more; and we couldn't live on two thousand there; I
should be ashamed to try. I'm sure I don't know where
we can live on it. I suppose in some country village,
where there are no schools, or anything for the chil
dren. I don't know what they'll say when we tell
them, poor things."

Every word was a stab in March's heart, so weakly
tender to his own; his wife's tears, after so much ex
perience of the comparative lightness of the griefs
that weep themselves out in women, always seemed
wrung from his own soul; if his children suffered in
the least through him, he felt like a murderer. It was
far worse than he could have imagined, the way his
wife took the affair, though he had imagined certain
words, or perhaps only looks, from her that were bad
enough. He had allowed for trouble, but trouble on
his account: a sympathy that might burden and em
barrass him; but he had not dreamed of this merely
domestic, this petty, this sordid view of their potential
calamity, which left him wholly out of the question,
and embraced only what was most crushing and deso
lating in the prospect. He could not bear it. He
caught up his hat again, and, with some hope that his
wife would try to keep him, rushed out of the house.
He wandered aimlessly about, thinking the same ex
hausting thoughts over and over, till he found himself
horribly hungry; then he went into a restaurant for his

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

lunch, and when he paid he tried to imagine how he
should feel if that were really his last dollar.

He went home toward the middle of the afternoon,
basely hoping that Fulkerson had sent him some con
ciliatory message, or perhaps was waiting there for him
to talk it over; March was quite willing to talk it over
now. But it was his wife who again met him at the
. door, though it seemed another woman than the one
he had left weeping in the morning.

" I told the children/' she said, in smiling explana
tion of his absence from lunch, " that perhaps you
were detained by business. I didn't know but you had
gone back to the office."

" Did you think I would go back there, Isabel ?"
asked March, with a haggard look. " Well, if you say
so, I will go back, and do what Dryfoos ordered me to
do. I'm sufficiently cowed between him and you, I
can assure you."

" Nonsense," she said. " I approve of everything
you did. But sit down, now, and don't keep walking
that way, and let me see if I understand it perfectly.
Of course, I had to have my say out."

She made him go all over his talk with Dryfoos
again, and report his own language precisely. From
time to time, as she got his points, she said, " That was
splendid," "Good enough for him!" and "Oh, I'm
so glad you said that to him!" At the end she said:
" Well, now, let's look at it from his point of view.
Let's be perfectly just to him before we take another
step forward."

" Or backward," March suggested, ruefully. " The
case is simply this: he owns the magazine."

" Of course."

" And he has a right to expect that I will consider
his pecuniary interests —

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, those detestable pecuniary interests ! Don't
you wish there wasn't any money in the world?"

" Yes ; or else that there was a great deal more of
it. And I was perfectly willing to do that. I have
always kept that in mind as one of my duties to him,
ever since I understood what his relation to the maga
zine was."

" Yes, I can bear witness to that in any court of
justice. You've done it a great deal more than I could,
Basil. And it was just the same way with those hor
rible insurance people."

" I know," March went on, trying to be proof against
her flatteries, or at least to look as if he did not deserve
praise ; " I know that what Lindau said was offensive
to him, and I can understand how he felt that he had
a right to punish it. All I say is that he had no right
to punish it through me."

" Yes," said Mrs. March, askingly.

" If it had been a question of making Every Other
Week the vehicle of Lindau's peculiar opinions —
though they're not so very peculiar; he might have
got the most of them out of Ruskin — I shouldn't have
had any ground to stand on, or at least then I should
have had to ask myself whether his opinions would be
injurious to the magazine or not."

" I don't see," Mrs. March interpolated, " how they
could hurt it much worse than Colonel Woodburn's
article crying up slavery."

" Well," said March, impartially, " we could print
a dozen articles praising the slavery it's impossible to
have back, and it wouldn't hurt us. But if we printed
one paper against the slavery which Lindau claims
still exists, some people would call us bad names, and
the counting-room would begin to feel it. But that
isn't the point. Lindau's connection with Every Oilier

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Week is almost purely mechanical ; he's merely a trans
lator of such stories and sketches as he first submits to
me, and it isn't at all a question of his opinions hurting
us, but of my becoming an agent to punish him for his
opinions. That is what I wouldn't do; that's what I
never will do."

" If you did," said his wife, " I should perfectly
despise you. I didn't understand how it was before.
I thought you were just holding out against Dryfoos
because he took a dictatorial tone with you, and because
you wouldn't recognize his authority. But now I'm
with you, Basil, every time, as that horrid little Ful-
kerson says. But who would ever have supposed he
would be so base as to side against you ?"

"I don't know," said March, thoughtfully, "that
we had a right to expect anything else. ^"Piilkprgrm^
standards are low: they're merely businessstan^arda.
and the good that's in him is TncfdehtaTlmd some
thing quite apart from his morals and methods. lie's
naturally a generous and right-minded creature, but
life has taught him to truckle and trick, like the rest
of us."

" It hasn't taught you that, Basil."

"Don't be so sure. Perhaps it's only that I'm a
poor scholar. But I don't know, really, that I despise
Fulkerson so much for his course this morning as for
his gross and fulsome flatteries of Dryfoos last night.
I could hardly stomach it."

His wife made him tell her what they were, and,
then she said, " Yes, that was loathsome; I couldn'r
have believed it of Mr. Fulkerson."

" Perhaps he only did it to keep the talk going, and
to give the old man a chance to say something," March
leniently suggested. " It was a worse effect because
he didn't or couldn't follow up Fulker son's lead."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" It was loathsome, all the same," his wife insisted.
" It's the end of Mr. Fulkerson, as far as I'm con
cerned."

" I didn't tell you before," March resumed, after a
moment, " of my little interview with Conrad Dryfoos
after his father left," and now he went on to repeat
what had passed between him and the young man.

" I suspect that he and his father had been having
some words before the old man came up to talk with
me, and that it was that made him so furious."

" Yes, but what a strange position for the son of
such a man to take! Do you suppose he says such
things to his father ?"

" I don't know ; but I suspect that in his meek way
Conrad would say what he believed to anybody. I
suppose we must regard him as a kind of crank."

" Poor young fellow ! He always makes me feel
sad, somehow. He has such a pathetic face. I
don't believe I ever saw him look quite happy, ex
cept that night at Mrs. Horn's, when he was talking
writh Miss Vance; and then he made me feel sadder
than ever."

" I don't envy him the life he leads at home, with
those convictions of his. I don't see why it wouldn't
be as tolerable there for old Lindau himself."

" Well, now," said Mrs. March, " let us put them
all out of our minds and see what we are going to do
ourselves."

They began to consider their ways and means, and
how and where they should live, in view of March's
severance of his relations with Every Oilier Week.
They had not saved anything from the first year's
salary; they had only prepared to save; and they had
nothing solid but their two thousand to count upon.
But they built a future in which they easily lived on

414

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

that and on what March earned with his pen. He be
came a free lance, and fought in whatever cause he
thought just; he had no ties, no chains. They went
back to Boston with the heroic will to do what was most
distasteful; they would have returned to their own
house if they had not rented it again; but, any rate,
Mrs. March helped out by taking boarders, or per
haps only letting rooms to lodgers. They had some
hard struggles, but they succeeded.

"The. great thing/' she said, " is to be right. I'm
ten times as happy as if you had come home and told
me that you had consented to do what Dryfoos asked
and he had doubled your salary."

" I don't think that would have happened in any
event," said March, dryly.

" Well, no matter. I just used it for an example."

They both experienced a buoyant relief, such as
seems to come to people who begin life anew on what
ever terms. " I hope we are young enough yet, Basil,"
she said, and she would not have it when he said they
had once been younger.

They heard the children's knock on the door; they
knocked when they came home from school so that their
mother might let them in. " Shall we tell them at
once ?" she asked, and ran to open for them before
March could answer.

They were not alone. Fulkerson, smiling from ear
to ear, was with them. " Is March in ?" he asked.

" Mr. March is at home, yes," she said very haughti
ly. " He's in his study," and she led the way there,
while the children went to their rooms.

" Well, March," Fulkerson called out at sight of
him, " it's all right ! The old man has come down."

" I suppose if you gentlemen are going to talk busi
ness — " Mrs. March began.

415

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Oh, we don't want you to go away," said Fulker-
son. " I reckon March has told you, anyway."

"Yes, I've told her," said March. "Don't go,
Isabel. What do you mean, Fulkerson ?"

" He's just gone on up home, and he sent me round
with his apologies. He sees now that he had no busi
ness to speak to you as he did, and he withdraws every
thing. He'd 'a' come round himself if I'd said so, but
I told him I could make it all right."

Fulkerson looked so happy in having the whole af
fair put right, and the Marches knew him to be so
kindly affected toward them, that they could not refuse
for the moment to share his mood. They felt them
selves slipping down from the moral height which they
had gained, and March made a clutch to stay himself
with the question, " And Lindau ?"

" Well," said Fulkerson, " he's going to leave Lindau
to me. You won't have anything to do with it. I'll
let the old fellow down easy."

" Do you mean," asked March, " that Mr. Dryfoos
insists on his being dismissed ?"

" Why, there isn't any dismissing about it," Fulker
son argued. " If you don't send him any more work,
he won't do any more, that's all. Or if he comes round,
you can — He's to be referred to me."

March shook his head, and his wife, with a sigh, felt
herself plucked up from the soft circumstance of their
lives, which she had sunk back into so quickly, and set
beside him on that cold peak of principle again. " It
won't do, Fulkerson. It's very good of you, and all
that, but it comes to the same thing in the end. I
could have gone on without any apology from Mr. Dry
foos; he transcended his authority, but that's a minor
matter. I could have excused it to his ignorance of life

among gentlemen ; but I can't consent to Lindau's dis-

416

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

missal — it comes to that, whether you do it or I do
it, and whether it's a positive or a negative thing —
because he holds this opinion or that."

" But don't you see," said Fulkerson, " that it's just
Lindau's opinions the old man can't stand ? He hasn't
got anything against him personally. I don't suppose
there's anybody that appreciates Lindau in some ways
more than the old man does."

" I understand. He wants to punish him for his
opinions. Well, I can't consent to that, directly or
indirectly. We don't print his opinions, and he has a
perfect right to hold them, whether Mr. Dryfoos agrees
with them or not."

Mrs. March had judged it decorous for her to say
nothing, but she now went and sat down in the chair
next her husband.

" Ah, dog on it !" cried Fulkerson, rumpling his hair
with both his hands. " What am I to do ? The old
man says he's got to go."

" And I don't consent to his going," said March.

" And you won't stay if he goes."

Fulkerson rose. " Well, well ! I've got to see about
it. I'm afraid the old man won't stand it, March; I
am, indeed. I wish you'd reconsider. I — I'd take it
as a personal favor if you would. It leaves me in a
fix. You see I've got to side with one or the other."

March made no reply to this, except to say, " Yes,
you must stand by him, or you must stand by me."

" Well, well ! Hold on awhile ! I'll see you in the
morning. Don't take any steps — '

" Oh, there are no steps to take," said March, with
a melancholy smile. " The steps are stopped ; that's
all." He sank back into his chair when Fulkerson was
gone and drew a long breath. " This is pretty rough.
I thought we had got through it."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" !Nb," said his wife. " It seems as if I had to make
the fight all over again."

" Well, it's a good thing it's a holy war."

" I can't bear the suspense. Why didn't you tell
him outright you wouldn't go back on any terms?"

" I might as well, and got the glory. He'll never
move Dryfoos. I suppose we both would like to go
back, if we could."

" Oh, I suppose so."

They could not regain their lost exaltation, their lost
dignity. At dinner Mrs. March asked the children how
they would like to go back to Boston to live.

" Why, we're not going, are we 3" asked Tom, with
out enthusiasm.

" I was just wondering how you felt about it, now,"
she said, with an underlook at her husband.

" Well, if we go back," said Bella, " I want to live
on the Back Bay. It's awfully Micky at the South
End."

" I suppose I should go to Harvard," said Tom,
" and I'd room out at Cambridge. It would be easier
to get at you on the Back Bay."

The parents smiled ruefully at each other, and, in
view of these grand expectations of his children, March
resolved to go as far as he could in meeting Dryfoos's
wishes. He proposed the theatre as a distraction from
the anxieties that he knew were pressing equally on
his wife. " We might go to the ' Old Homestead,' "
he suggested, with a sad irony, which only his wife felt.

" Oh yes, let's!" cried Bella.

While they were getting ready, some one rang, and
Bella went to the door, and then came to tell her father
that it was Mr. Lindau. " He says he wants to see you
just a moment. He's in the parlor, and he won't sit

down, or anything."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" What can he want ?" groaned Mrs. March, from
their common dismay.

March apprehended a storm in the old man's face.
But he only stood in the middle of the room, looking
very sad and grave. " You are coing oudt," he said.
" I won't geep you long. I haf gome to pring pack
dose macassines and dis mawney. I can't do any more
voark for you; and I can't geep the mawney you haf
baid me a'ready. It iss not hawnest mawney — that
hass been oarned py voark; it iss mawney that hass
peen mate py sbeculation, and the obbression off lapor,
and the necessity of the boor, py a man — Here it is,
efery tollar, efery zent. Dake it; I feel as if dere vas
ploodt on it."

" Why, Lindau," March began, but the old man in
terrupted him.

" Ton't dalk to me, Passil ! I could not haf be-
lievedt it of you. When you know how I feel about
dose tings, why tidn't you dell me ivJiose mawney
you bay oudt to me ? Ach, I ton't plame you — I ton't
rebroach you. You haf nefer thought of it; boat I —
I have thought, and I should be cuilty, I must share
that man's cuilt, if I gept hiss mawney. If you hat
toldt me at the peginning — if you hat peen frank with
me — boat it iss all righdt ; you can go on ; you ton't see
dese tings as I see them ; and you haf cot a family,
and I am a free man. I voark to myself, and when I
ton't voark, I sdarfe to myself. But I geep my handts
glean, voark or sdarfe. Gif him hiss mawney pack!
I am sawry for him; I would not hq^art hiss feelings,
boat I could not pear to douch him, and hiss mawney
iss like boison!"

March tried to reason with Lindau, to show him the
folly, the injustice, the absurdity of his course ; it ended
in their both getting angry, and in Lindau's going away
28 ' 419

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

in a whirl of German that included Basil in the guilt
of the man whom Lindau called his master.

" Well," said Mrs. March. " He is a crank, and
I think you're well rid of him. ISTow you have no
quarrel with that horrid old Dryfoos, and you can keep
right on."

" Yes," said March, " I wish it didn't make me feel
so sneaking. What a long day it's been ! It seems like
a century since I got up."

" Yes, a thousand years. Is there anything else left
to happen ?"

" I hope not. I'd like to go to bed."

" Why, aren't you going to the theatre ?" wailed
Bella, coming in upon her father's desperate ex
pression.

" The theatre ? Oh yes, certainly ! I meant after
we got home," and March amused himself at the puz
zled countenance of the child. " Come on ! Is Tom
ready?"

IX

FTJLKERSON parted with the Marches in such trouble
of mind that he did not feel able to meet that night
the people whom he usually kept so gay at Mrs. Leigh-
ton's table. He went to Maroni's for his dinner, for
this reason and for others more obscure. He could not
expect to do anything more with Dryfoos at once; he
knew that Dryfoos must feel that he had already made
an extreme concession to March, and he believed that
if he was to get anything more from him it must be
after Dryfoos had dined. But he was not without the
hope, vague and indefinite as it might be, that he
should find Lindau at Maroni's, and perhaps should
get some concession from him, some word of regret or
apology which he could report to Dryfoos, and at least
make the means of reopening the affair with him ; per
haps Lindau, when he knew how matters stood, would
back down altogether, and for March's sake would
withdraw from all connection with Every Other Week
himself, and so leave everything serene. Fulkerson
felt capable, in his desperation, of delicately suggest
ing such a course to Lindau, or even of plainly ad
vising it : he did not care for Lindau a great deal, and
he did care a great deal for the magazine.

But he did not find Lindau at Maroni's; he only
found Beaton. He sat looking at the doorway as Ful
kerson entered, and Fulkerson naturally came and took

a place at his table. Something in Beaton's large-eyed

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

solemnity of aspect invited Fulkerson to confidence,
and he said, as he pulled his napkin open and strung
it, still a little damp (as the scanty, often-washed linen
at Maroni's was apt to be), across his knees, " I was
looking for you this morning, to talk with you about
the Christmas number, and I was a good deal worked
up because I couldn't find you ; but I guess I might
as well have spared myself my emotions."

" Why ?" asked Beaton, briefly.

" Well, I don't know as there's going to be any
Christmas number."

" Why ?" Beaton asked again.

" Row between the financial angel and the literary
editor about the chief translator and polyglot smeller."

" Lindau ?"

" Lindau is his name."

" What does the literary editor expect after Lindau's
expression of his views last night?"

" I don't know what he expected, but the ground he
took with the old man was that, as Liiidau's opinions
didn't characterize his work on the magazine, he would
not be made the instrument of punishing him for them:
the old man wanted him turned off, as he calls it."

" Seems to be pretty good ground," said Beaton, im
partially, while he speculated, with a dull trouble at
heart, on the effect the row would have on his own
fortunes. His late visit home had made him feel that
the claim of his family upon him for some repayment
of help given could not be much longer delayed; with
his mother sick and his father growing old, he must
begin to do something for them, but up to this time he
had spent his salary even faster than he had earned
it. When Fulkerson came in he was wondering whether
he could get him to increase it, if he threatened to give
up his work, and he wished that he was enough in love

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

with Margaret Vance, or even Christine Dryfoos, to
marry her, only to end in the sorrowful conviction
that he was really in love with Alma Leighton, who
had no money, and who had apparently no wish to
be married for love, even. " And what are you going
to do about it?" he asked, listlessly.

" Be dogged if I know what I'm going to do about
it," said Fulkerson. " I've been round all day, trying
to pick up the pieces — row began right after break
fast this morning — and one time I thought I'd got the
thing all put together again. I got the old man to say
that he had spoken to March a little too authoritatively
about Lindau; that, in fact, he ought to have com
municated his wishes through me; and that he was
willing to have me get rid of Lindau, and March
needn't have anything to do with it. I thought that
wras pretty white, but March says the apologies and
regrets are all well enough in their way, but they leave
the main question where they found it."

" What is the main question ?" Beaton asked, pour
ing himself out some Chianti. As he set the flask down
he made the reflection that if he would drink water
instead of Chianti he could send his father three dol
lars a week, on his back debts, and he resolved to do it.

" The main question, as March looks at it, is the
question of punishing Lindau for his private opinions ;
he says that if he consents to my bouncing the old
fellow it's the same as if he bounced him."

" It might have that complexion in some lights,"
said Beaton. He drank off his Chianti, and thought
he would have it twice a week, or make Maroni keep
the half-bottles over for him, and send his father two
dollars. " And what are you going to do now ?"

" That's what I don't know," said Eulkerson, rue
fully. After a moment he said, desperately, " Beaton,

423

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

you've got a pretty good head; why don't you suggest
something ?"

" Why don't you let March go ?" Beaton suggested.

" Ah, I couldn't," said Fulkerson. " I got him to
break up in Boston and come here ; I like him ; nobody
else could get the hang of the thing like he has; he's
— a friend." Fulkerson said this with the nearest ap
proach he could make to seriousness, which was a kind
of unhappiness.

Beaton shrugged. " Oh, if you can afford to have
ideals, I congratulate you. They're too expensive for
me. Then, suppose you get rid of Dryfoos ?"

Fulkerson laughed forlornly. " Go on, Bildad.
Like to sprinkle a few ashes over my boils ? Don't
mind me/"

They both sat silent a little while, and then Beaton
said, " I suppose you haven't seen Dryfoos the second
time ?"

" ~No. I came in here to gird up my loins with a
little dinner before I tackled him. But something
seems to be the matter with Maroni's cook. I don't
want anything to eat."

" The cooking's about as bad as usual," said Beaton.
After a moment he added, ironically, for he found
Fulkerson's misery a kind of relief from his own, and
was willing to protract it as long as it was amusing,
" Why not try an envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary ?"

" What do you mean ?"

" Get that other old fool to go to Dryfoos for you !"

"Which other old fool? The old fools seem to be
as thick as flies."

" That Southern one."

" Colonel Woodburn »"

" Mmmmm."

424

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" He did seem to rather take to the colonel !" Ful-
kerson mused aloud.

" Of course he did. Woodburn, with his idiotic
talk ahout patriarchal slavery, is the man on horseback
to Dryfoos's muddy imagination. He'd listen to him
abjectly, and he'd do whatever Woodburn told him to
do." Beaton smiled cynically.

Fulkerson got up and reached for his coat and hat.
" You've struck it, old man." The waiter came up to
help him on with his coat ; .Fulkerson slipped a dollar
in his hand. " Never mind the coat ; you can give
the rest of my dinner to the poor, Paolo. Beaton,
shake! You've saved my life, little boy, though I
don't think you meant it." He took Beaton's hand
and solemnly pressed it, and then almost ran out of
the door.

They had just reached coffee at Mrs. Leighton's
when he arrived and sat down with them and be
gan to put some of the life of his new hope into them.
His appetite revived, and, after protesting that he would
not take anything but coffee, he went back and ate
some of the earlier courses. But with the pressure of
his purpose driving him forward, he did not conceal
from Miss Woodburn, at least, that he was eager to
get her apart from the rest for some reason. When
he accomplished this, it seemed as if he had contrived
it all himself, but perhaps he had not wholly con
trived 'it.

" I'm so glad to get a chance to speak to you alone,"
he said at once; and while she waited for the next
word he made a pause, and then said, desperately, " I
want you to help me ; and if you can't help me, there's
no help for me."

" Mah goodness," she said, " is the case so bad as
that ? What in the woald is the trouble ?"

425

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Yes, it's a bad case," said Fulkerson. " I want
your father to help me."

" Oh, I thoat you said me!"

" Yes ; I want you to help me with your father. I
suppose I ought to go to him at once, but I'm a little
afraid of him."

" And you awe not afraid of m-e ? I don't think
that's very flattering, Mr. Fulkerson. You ought to
think Ah'm twahce as awful as papa."

" Oh, I do ! You see, I'm quite paralyzed before
you, and so I don't feel anything."

" Well, it's a pretty lahvely kyand of paralysis.
But — go on."

" I will — I will. If I can only begin."

" Pohaps Ah maght begin fo' you."

" No, you can't. Lord knows, I'd like to let you.
Well, it's like this."

Fulkerson made a clutch at his hair, and then, after
another hesitation, he abruptly laid the whole affair
before her. He did not think it necessary to state the
exact nature of the offence Lindau had given Dryfoos,
for he doubted if she could grasp it, and he was pro
fuse of his excuses for troubling her with the matter,
and of wonder at himself for having done so. In the
rapture of his concern at having perhaps made a fool
of himself, he forgot why he had told her; but she
seemed to like having been confided in, and she said,
" Well, Ah don't see what you can do with you' ahdeals
of friendship except stand bah .Mr. Mawch."

" My ideals of friendship ? What do you mean ?"

" Oh, don't you suppose we know ? Mr. Beaton said
you we' a pofect Bahyard in friendship, and you would
sacrifice anything to it."

" Is that so ?" said Fulkerson, thinking how easily
he could sacrifice Lindau in this case. He had never

426

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

supposed before that he was chivalrous in such matters,
but he now began to see it in that light, and he won
dered that he could ever have entertained for a moment
the idea of throwing March over.

" But Ah most say" Miss Woodburn went on, " Ah
don't envy you you' next interview with Mr. Dryfoos.
Ah suppose you'll have to see him at once aboat it."

The conjecture recalled Fulkerson to the object of
his confidences. " Ah, there's where your help comes
in. I've exhausted all the influence / have with Dry
foos—"

" Good gracious, you don't expect Ah could have
any!"

They both laughed at the comic dismay with which
she conveyed the preposterous notion ; and Fulkerson
said, " If I judged from myself, I should expect you
to bring him round instantly."

" Oh, thank you, Mr. Fulkerson," she said, with
mock meekness.

" Not at all. But it isn't Dryfoos I want you to
help me with; it's your father. I want your father
to interview Dryfoos for me, and I — I'm afraid to ask
him."

" Poo' Mr. Fulkerson !" she said, and she insinuated
something through her burlesque compassion that lifted
him to the skies. He swore in his heart that the woman
never lived who was so witty, so wise, so beautiful, and
so good. " Come raght with me this minute, if the
cyoast's clea'." She went to the door of the dining-
room and looked in across its gloom to the little gallery
where her father sat beside a lamp reading his evening
paper; Mrs. Leighton could be heard in colloquy with
the cook below, and Alma had gone to her room. She
beckoned Fulkerson with the hand outstretched behind
her, and said, " Go and ask him."

427

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Alone !" lie palpitated.

" Oh, what a cyowahd !" she cried, and went with
him. " Ah suppose you'll want me to tell him
aboat it."

" Well, I wish you'd begin, Miss Woodburn," he
said. " The fact is, you know, I've been over it so
much I'm kind of sick of the thing."

Miss Woodburn advanced and put her hand on her
father's shoulder. " Look heah, papa ! Mr. Fulkersoii
wants to ask you something, and he wants me to do it
fo' him."

The colonel looked up through his glasses with the
sort of ferocity elderly men sometimes have to put on
in order to keep their glasses from falling off. His
daughter continued:

" He's got into an awful difficulty with his edito'
and his proprieto', and he wants you to pacify them."

" I do not know whethah I understand the case
exactly," said the colonel, " but Mr. Fulkerson may
command me to the extent of my ability."

" You don't understand it af tah what Ah've said ?"
cried the girl. " Then Ah don't see but what you'll
have to explain it you'self, Mr. Fulkerson."

" Well, Miss Woodburn has been so luminous about
it, colonel," said Fulkerson, glad of the joking shape
she had given the affair, " that I can only throw in a
little side-light here and there."

The colonel listened, as Fulkerson went on, with
a grave diplomatic satisfaction. He felt gratified, hon
ored, even, he said, by Mr. Fulkerson's appeal to him;
and probably it gave him something of the high joy
that an affair of honor would have brought him in the
days when he had arranged for meetings between gentle
men. Next to bearing a challenge, this work of com
posing a difficulty must have been grateful. But he

428

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

gave no outward sign of his satisfaction in making a
resume of the case so as to get the points clearly in his
mind.

" I was afraid, sir," he said, with the state due to
the serious nature of the facts, " that Mr. Lindau had
given Mr. Dryfoos offence by some of his questions at
the dinner-table last night."

" Perfect red rag to a bull," Fulkerson put in ; and
then he wanted to withdraw his words at the colonel's
look of displeasure.

" I have no reflections to make upon Mr. Lindau,"
Colonel Woodburn continued, and Fulkerson felt grate
ful to him for going on ; "I do not agree with Mr.
Lindau; I totally disagree with him on sociological
points ; but the course of the conversation had invited
him to the expression of his convictions, and he had
a right to express them, so far as they had no personal
bearing."

" Of course," said Fulkerson, while Miss Woodburn
perched on the arm of her father's chair.

" At the same time, sir, I think that if Mr. Dryfoos
felt a personal censure in Mr. Lindau's questions con
cerning his suppression of the strike among his work
men, he had a right to resent it."

" Exactly," Fulkerson assented.

" But it must be evident to you, sir, that a high-
spirited gentleman like Mr. March — I confess that my
feelings are with him very warmly in the matter —
could not submit to dictation of the nature you de
scribe."

" Yes, I see," said Fulkerson ; and, with that strange
duplex action of the human mind, he wished that it
was his hair, and not her father's, that Miss Woodburn
was poking apart with the corner of her fan.

" Mr. Lindau," the colonel concluded, " was right

429

A HAZAKD OF NEW FOKTUNES

from his point of view, and Mr. Dryfoos was equally
right. The position of Mr. March is perfectly cor
rect—"

His daughter dropped to her feet from his chair-
arm. " Mah goodness ! If nobody's in the wrong, ho'
awe you evah going to get the mattah straight ?"

" Yes, you see," Fulkerson added, " nobody can
give in."

" Pardon me," said the colonel, " the case is one in
which all can give in."

" I don't know which '11 begin," said Fulkerson.

The colonel rose. " Mr. Lindau must begin, sir.
We must begin by seeing Mr. Lindau, and securing
from him the assurance that in the expression of his
peculiar views he had no intention of offering any per
sonal offence to Mr. "Dryfoos. If I have formed a
correct estimate of Mr. Lindau, this will be perfectly
simple."

Fulkerson shook his head. " But it wouldn't help.
Dryfoos don't care a rap whether Lindau meant any
personal offence or not. As far as that is concerned,
he's got a hide like a hippopotamus. But what he
hates is Lindau's opinions, and what he says is that no
man who holds such opinions shall have any work from
him. And what March says is that no man shall be
punished through him for his opinions, he don't care
what they are."

The colonel stood a moment in silence. " And what
do you expect me to do under the circumstances ?"

" I came to you for advice — I thought you might
suggest — "

" Do you wish me to see Mr. Dryfoos ?"

"Well, that's about the size of it," Fulkerson ad
mitted. " You see, colonel," he hastened on, " I know
that you have a great deal of influence -with him; that

430

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

article of yours is about the only thing he's ever read
in Every Other Week, and he's proud of your acquaint
ance. Well, you know " — and here Fulkerson brought
in the figure that struck him so much in Beaton's
phrase and had been on his tongue ever since; — " you're
the man on horseback to him ; and he'd be more apt to
do what you say than if anybody else said it."

" You are very good, sir," said the colonel, trying
to be proof against the flattery, " but I am afraid you
overrate my influence." Fulkerson let him ponder it
silently, and his daughter governed her impatience by
holding her fan against her lips. Whatever the process
was in the colonel's mind, he said at last : " I see no
good reason for declining to act for you, Mr. Fulker
son, and I shall be very happy if I can be of service
to you. But "- —he stopped Fulkerson from cutting in
with precipitate thanks — " I think I have a right, sir,
to ask what your course will be in the event of failure ?"

" Failure ?" Fulkerson repeated, in dismay.

" Yes, sir. I will not conceal from you that this
mission is one not wholly agreeable to my feelings."

" Oh, I understand that, colonel, and I assure you
that I appreciate, I —

" There is no use trying to blink the fact, sir, that
there are certain aspects of Mr. Dryfoos's character
in which he is not a gentleman. We have alluded to
this fact before, and I need not dwell upon it now. I
may say, however, that my misgivings were not wholly
removed last night."

" No," Fulkerson assented ; though in his heart he
thought the old man had behaved very well.

" What I wish to say now is that I cannot consent
to act for you, in this matter, merely as an intermediary
whose failure would leave the affair in statu quo.79

" I see," said Fulkerson.

431

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" And I should like some intimation, some assurance,
as to which party your own feelings are with in the
difference."

The colonel bent his eyes sharply on Fulkerson;
Miss Woodburn let hers fall; Fulkerson felt that he
was being tested, and he said, to gain time, " As be
tween Lindau and Dryf oos ?" though he knew this was
not the point.

" As between Mr. Dryfoos and Mr. March," said
the colonel.

Fulkerson drew a long breath and took his courage
in both hands. " There can't be any choice for me in
such a case. I'm for March, every time."

The colonel seized his hand, and Miss Woodburn
said, " If there had been any choice fo' you in such
a case, I should never have let papa stir a step with
you."

" Why, in regard to that," said the colonel, with a
literal application of the idea, " was it your intention
that we should both go ?"

" Well, I don't know ; I suppose it was."

" I think it will be better for me to go alone," said
the colonel; and, with a color from his experience in
affairs of honor, he added : " In these matters a prin
cipal cannot appear without compromising his dignity.
I believe I have all the points clearly in mind, and I
think I should act more freely in meeting Mr. Dryfoos
alone."

Fulkerson tried to hide the eagerness with which
he met these agreeable views. He felt himself ex
alted in some sort to the level of the colonel's senti
ments, though it would not be easy to say whether this
was through the desperation bred of having committed
himself to March's side, or through the buoyant hope
he had that the colonel would succeed in his mission.

432

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I'm not afraid to talk with Dryfoos about it," he
said.

" There is no question of courage," said the colonel.
" It is a question of dignity — of personal dignity."

" Well, don't let that delay you, papa," said his
daughter, following him to the door, where she found
him his hat, and Fulkerson helped him on with his
overcoat. " Ah shall be jost wald to know ho' it's
toned oat."

" Won't you let me go up to the house with you ?"
Fulkerson began. " I needn't go in — "

" I prefer to go alone," said the colonel. " I wish
to turn the points over in my mind, and I am afraid
you would find me rather dull company."

He went out, and Fulkerson returned with Miss
Woodburn to the drawing-room, where she said the
Leightons were. They were not there, but she did not
seem disappointed.

" Well, Mr. Fulkerson," she said, " you have got an
ahdeal of friendship, sure enough."

"Me?" said Fulkerson. "Oh, my Lord! Don't
you see I couldn't do anything else ? And Fm scared
half to death, anyway. If the colonel don't bring the
old man round, I reckon it's all up with me. But he'll
fetch him. And I'm just prostrated with gratitude to
you, Miss Woodburn."

She waved his thanks aside with her fan. " What
do you mean by its being all up with you?"

" Why, if the old man sticks to his position, and I
stick to March, we've both got to go overboard together.
Dryfoos owns the magazine; he can stop it, or he can
stop us, which amounts to the same thing, as far as
we're concerned."

" And then what ?" the girl pursued.

" And then, nothing — till we pick ourselves up."

433

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Do you mean that Mr. Dryfoos will put you both
oat of your places 2"

" He may."

" And Mr. Mawch takes the risk of that jost fo' a
principle ?"

" I reckon."

" And you do it jost fo' an ahdeal ?"

" It won't do to own it. I must have my little axe
to grind, somewhere."

" Well, men awe splendid," sighed the girl. " Ah
will say it."

" Oh, they're not so much better than women," said
Fulkerson, with a nervous jocosity. " I guess March
would have backed down if it hadn't been for his wife.
She was as hot as pepper about it, and you could see
that she would have sacrificed all her husband's rela
tions sooner than let him back down an inch from the
stand he had taken. It's pretty easy for a man to stick
to a principle if he has a woman to stand by him. But
when you come to play it alone —

" Mr. Fulkerson," said the girl, solemnly, " Ah will
stand bah you in this, if all the woald tones against
you." The tears came into her eyes, and she put out
her hand to him.

" You will ?" he shouted, in a rapture. " In every
way — and always — as long as you live ? Do you
mean it?" He had caught her hand to his breast
and was grappling it tight there and drawing her to
him.

The changing emotions chased one another through
her heart and over her face : dismay, shame, pride, ten
derness. " You don't believe" she said, hoarsely,
"that Ah meant that?"

" No, but I hope you do mean it ; for if you don't,

nothing else means anything."

434

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

There was no space, there was only a point of waver
ing. " Ah do mean it."

When they lifted their eyes from each other again
it was half-past ten. " No' you most go," she said.

" But the colonel— our fate ?"

" The co'nel is often oat late, and Ah'm not afraid
of ouah fate, no' that we've taken it into ouah own
hands." She looked at him with dewy eyes of trust,
of inspiration.

" Oh, it's going to come out all right," he said. " It
can't come out wrong now, no matter what happens.
But who'd have thought it, when I came into this house,
in such a state of sin and misery, half an hour ago —

" Three houahs and a half ago !" she said. " No'
you most jost go. Ah'm tahed to death. Good-night.
You can come in the mawning to see — papa." She
opened the door and pushed him out with enrapturing
violence, and he ran laughing down the steps into her
father's arms.

" Why, colonel ! I was just going up to meet you."
He had really thought he would walk off his exultation
in that direction.

" I am very sorry to say, Mr. Fulkerson," the colonel
began, gravely, " that Mr. Dryfoos adheres to his posi
tion."

" Oh, all right," said Fulkerson, with unabated joy.
" It's what I expected. Well, my course is clear ; I
shall stand by March, and I guess the world won't come
to an end if he bounces us both. But I'm everlast
ingly obliged to you, Colonel Woodburn, and I don't
know what to say to you. I — I won't detain you
now; it's so late. I'll see you in the morning.
Good-ni— "

Fulkerson did not realize that it takes two to part.
The colonel laid hold of his arm and turned away with
29 435

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

him. " I will walk toward your place with you. I
can understand why you should be anxious to know1 the
particulars of my interview with Mr. Dryfoos " ; and
in the statement which followed he did not spare him
the smallest. It outlasted their walk and detained
them long on the steps of the Every Other Week build
ing. But at the end Fulkerson let himself in with his
key as light of heart as if he nad been listening to the
gayest promises that fortune could make.

By the time he met March at the office next morn
ing, a little, but only a very little, misgiving saddened
his golden heaven. He took March's hand with high
courage, and said, " Well, the old man sticks to his
point, March." He added, with the sense of saying it
before Miss Woodburn : " And I stick by you. I've
thought it all over, and I'd rather be right with you
than wrong with him."

" Well, I appreciate your motive, Fulkerson," said
March. " But perhaps — perhaps we can save over our
heroics for another occasion. Lindau seems to have got
in with his, for the present."

He told him of Lindau's last visit, and they stood
a moment looking at each other rather queerly. Ful
kerson was the first to recover his spirits. " Well," he
said, cheerily, " that let's us out."

" Does it ? I'm not sure it lets me out," said March ;
but he said this in tribute to his crippled self-respect
rather than as a forecast of any action in the matter.

" Why, what are you going to do ?" Fulkerson asked.
" If Lindau won't work for Dryfoos, you can't make
him."

March sighed. " What are you going to do with this
money ?" He glanced at the heap of bills he had flung
on the table between them.

Fulkerson scratched his head. " Ah, dogged if /

436

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

know. Can't we give it to the deserving poor, some
how, if we can find 'em ?"

" I suppose we've no right to use it in any way.
You must give it to Dryfoos."

''' To the deserving rich ? Well, you can always find
them. I reckon you don't want to appear in the trans
action; / don't, either; but I guess I must." Fulker-
son gathered up the money and carried it to Conrad.
He directed him to account for it in his books as con
science-money, and he enjoyed the joke more than
Conrad seemed to do when he was told where it came
from.

Fulkerson was able to wear off the disagreeable im
pression the affair left during the course of the fore
noon, and he met Miss Woodburn with all a lover's
buoyancy when he went to lunch. She was as happy
as he when he told her how fortunately the whole thing
had ended, and he took her view that it was a reward
of his courage in having dared the worst. They both
felt, as the newly plighted always do/ that they were
in the best relations with the beneficent powers, and
that their felicity had been especially looked to in the
disposition of events. They were in a glow of raptur
ous content with themselves and radiant worship of
each other; she was sure that he merited the bright
future opening to them both, as much as if he owed
it directly to some noble action of his own ; he felt that
he was indebted for the favor of Heaven entirely to the
still incredible accident of her preference of him over
other men.

Colonel Woodburn, who was not yet in the secret
of their love, perhaps failed for this reason to share
their satisfaction with a result so unexpectedly brought
about. The blessing on their4iopes seemed to his igno
rance to involve certain sacrifices of personal feeling at

437

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

which he hinted in suggesting that Dryfoos should now
be asked to make some abstract concessions and ac
knowledgments ; his daughter hastened to deny that
these were at all necessary; and Fulkerson easily ex
plained why. The thing was over; what was the use
of opening it up again ?

" Perhaps none/' the colonel admitted. But he
added, " I should like the opportunity of taking Mr.
Lindau's hand in the presence of Mr. Dryfoos and
assuring him that I considered him a man of principle
and a man of honor — a gentleman, sir, whom I was
proud and happy to have known."

" Well, Ah've no doabt," said his daughter, demure
ly, " that you'll have the chance some day ; and we
would all 1 alike to join you. But at the same tahme,
Ah think Mr. Fulkerson is well oat of it fo' the
present."

PART FIFTH

SUPERFICIALLY, the affairs of Every Ofher Week
settled into their wonted form again, and for Fulker-
son they seemed thoroughly reinstated. But March
had a feeling of impermanency from what had hap
pened, mixed with a fantastic sense of shame toward
Lindau. He did not sympathize with Lindau's opin
ions ; he thought his remedy for existing evils as wildly
impracticable as Colonel Woodburn's. But while he
thought this, and while he could justly blame Fulker-
son for Lindau's presence at Dryfoos's dinner, which
his zeal had brought about in spite of March's pro
tests, still he could not rid himself of the reproach of
uncandor with Lindau. He ought to have told him
frankly about the ownership of the magazine, and what
manner of man the man was whose money he was tak
ing. But he said that he never could have imagined
that he was serious in his preposterous attitude in re
gard to a class of men who embody half the prosperity
of the country; and he had moments of revolt against
his own humiliation before Lindau, in which he found
it monstrous that he should return Dryfoos's money as
if it had been the spoil of a robber. His wife agreed
with him in these moments, and said it was a great
relief not to have that tiresome old German coming
about. They had to account for his absence evasively
to the children, whom they could not very well tell that
their father was living on money that Lindau disdained

to take, even though Lindau was wrong and their father

441

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

was right. This heightened Mrs. March's resentment
toward both Lindau and Dryfoos, who between them
had placed her husband in a false position. If any
thing, she resented Dryfoos's conduct more than Lin-
dau's. He had never spoken to March about the affair
since Lindau had renounced his work, or added to the
apologetic messages he had sent by Fulkerson. So far
as March knew, Dryfoos had been left to suppose that
Lindau had simply stopped for some reason that did
not personally affect him. They never spoke of him,
and March was too proud to ask either Fulkerson or
Conrad whether the old man knew that Lindau had
returned his money. He avoided talking to Conrad,
from a feeling that if he did he should involuntarily
lead him on to speak of his differences with his father.
Between himself and Fulkerson, even, he was uneasily
aware of a want of their old perfect friendliness. Ful
kerson had finally behaved with honor and courage;
but his provisional reluctance had given March the
measure of Fulkerson's character in one direction, and
he could not ignore the fact that it was smaller than
he could have wished.

He could not make out whether Fulkerson shared
his discomfort or not. It certainly wore away, even
with March, as time passed, and with Fulkerson, in
the bliss of his fortunate love, it was probably far
more transient, if it existed at all. He advanced into
the winter as radiantly as if to meet the spring, and
he said that if there were any pleasanter month of the
year than November, it was December, especially when
the weather was good and wet and muddy most of the
time, so that you had to keep indoors a long while after
you called anywhere.

Colonel Woodburn had the anxiety, in view of his
daughter's engagement, when she asked his consent to

442

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

it, that such a dreamer must have in regard to any
reality that threatens to affect the course of his reveries.
He had not perhaps taken her marriage into account,
except as a remote contingency: and certainly Fulker-
son was not the kind of son-in-law that he had imagined
in dealing with that abstraction. But because he had
nothing of the sort definitely in mind, he could not
oppose the selection of Fulkerson with success; he
really knew nothing against him, and he knew many
things in his favor; Fulkerson inspired him with the
liking that every one felt for him in a measure; he
amused him, he cheered him ; and the colonel had been
so much used to leaving action of all kinds to his
daughter that when he came to close quarters with the
question of a son-in-law he felt helpless to decide it,
and he let her decide it, as if it were still to be de*-
cided when it was submitted to him. She was com
petent to treat it in all its phases: not merely those
of personal interest, but those of duty to the broken
Southern past, sentimentally dear to him, and practical
ly absurd to her. ]STo such South as he remembered
had ever existed to her knowledge, and no such civil
ization as he imagined would ever exist, to her belief,
anywhere. She took the world as she found it, and
made the best of it. She trusted in Fulkerson ; she had
proved his magnanimity in a serious emergency; and
in small things she was willing fearlessly to chance it
with him. She was not a sentimentalist, and there was
nothing fantastic in her expectations ; she was a girl of
good sense and right mind, and she liked the immedi
ate practicality as well as the final honor of Fulkerson.
She did not idealize him, but in the highest effect she
realized him; she did him justice, and she would not
have believed that she did him more than justice if
she had sometimes known him to do himself less.

443

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Their engagement was a fact to which the Leighton
household adjusted itself almost as simply as the lovers
themselves ; Miss Woodburn told the ladies at once, and
it was not a thing that Fulkerson could keep from
March very long. He sent word of it to Mrs. March
by her husband ; and his engagement perhaps did more
than anything else to confirm the confidence in him
which had been shaken by his early behavior in the
Lindau episode, and not wholly restored by his tardy
fidelity to March. But now she felt that a man who
wished to get married so obviously and entirely for
love was full of all kinds of the best instincts, and
only needed the guidance of a wife to become very
noble. .She interested herself intensely in balancing
the respective merits of the engaged couple, and after
her call upon Miss Woodburn in her new character she
prided herself upon recognizing the worth of some
strictly Southern qualities in her, while maintaining
the general average of ~New England superiority. She
could not reconcile herself to the Virginian custom
illustrated in her having been christened with the sur
name of Madison; and she said that its pet form of
Mad, which Fulkerson promptly invented, only made
it more ridiculous.

Fulkerson was slower in telling Beaton. He was
afraid, somehow, of Beaton's taking the matter in the
cynical way ; Miss Woodburn said she would break off
the engagement if Beaton was left to guess it or find
it out by accident, and then Fulkerson plucked up his
courage. Beaton received the news with gravity, and
with a sort of melancholy meekness that strongly moved
Fulkerson's sympathy, and made him wish that Beaton
was engaged, too.

It made Beaton feel very old ; it somehow left him
behind and forgotten; in a manner, it made him feel

444

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

trifled with. Something of the unfriendliness of fate
seemed to overcast his resentment, and he allowed the
sadness of his conviction that he had not the means to
marry on to tinge his recognition of the fact that Alma
Leighton would not have wanted him to marry her if
he had. He was now often in that martyr mood in
which he wished to help his father; not only to deny
himself Chianti, but to forego a fur -lined overcoat
which he intended to get for the winter. He post
poned the moment of actual sacrifice as regarded the
Chianti, and he bought the overcoat in an anguish of
self-reproach. He wore it the first evening after he
got it in going to call upon the Leightons, and it seemed
to him a piece of ghastly irony when Alma compli
mented his picturesqueness in it and asked him to let
her sketch him.

" Oh, you can sketch me," he said, with so much
gloom that it made her laugh.

" If you think it's so serious, I'd rather not."

" No, no ! Go ahead ! How do you want me ?"

" Oh, fling yourself down on a chair in one of
your attitudes of studied negligence; and twist one
corner of your mustache with affected absence of
mind."

" And you think I'm always studied, always af
fected?"

" I didn't say so."

" I didn't ask you what you said"

" And I won't tell you what I think."

" Ah, I know what you think."

" What made you ask, then ?" The girl laughed
again with the satisfaction of her sex in cornering a
man.

Beaton made a show of not deigning to reply, and
put himself in the pose she suggested, frowning.

445

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Ah, that's it. But a little more animation —

" ' As when a great thought strikes along the brain,
And flushes all the cheek/"

She put her forehead down on the back of her hand
and laughed again. " You ought to be photographed.
You look as if you were sitting for it."

Beaton said : " That's because I know I am being
photographed, in one way. I don't think you ought to
call me affected. I never am so with you; I know it
wouldn't be of any use."

" Oh, Mr. Beaton, you flatter."

" No, I never flatter you."

" I meant you flattered yourself."

"How?"

" Oh, I don't know. Imagine."

" I know what you mean. You think I can't be
sincere with anybody."

" Oh no, I don't."

" What do you think ?"

" That you can't — try." Alma gave another victori
ous laugh.

Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson would once have both
feigned a great interest in Alma's sketching Beaton,
and made it the subject of talk, in which they ap
proached as nearly as possible the real interest of their
lives. ~Now they frankly remained away in the dining-
room, which was very cozy after the dinner had dis
appeared; the colonel sat with his lamp and paper in
the gallery beyond ; Mrs. Leighton was about her house
keeping affairs, in the content she always felt when
Alma was with Beaton.

" They seem to be having a pretty good time in
there," said Fulkerson, detaching himself from his

own absolute good time as well as he could,

446

A HAZARD OF HEW FORTUNES

" At least Alma does," said Miss Woodburn.

" Do you think she cares for him ?"

" Quahte as moch as he desoves."

" What makes you all down on Beaton around here ?
He's not such a bad fellow."

" We awe not all doan on him. Mrs. Leighton isn't
doan on him."

" Oh, I guess if it was the old lady, there wouldn't
be much question about it."

They both laughed, and Alma said, " They seem to
be greatly amused with something in there."

" Me, probably," said Beaton. " I seem to amuse
everybody to-night."

" Don't you always ?"

" I always amuse you, I'm afraid, Alma."

She looked at him as if she were going to snub him
openly for using her name ; but apparently she decided
to do it covertly. " You didn't at first. I really used
to believe you could be serious, once."

" Couldn't you believe it again ? Now 1"

" Not when you put on that wind-harp stop."

" Wetmore has been talking to you about me. He
would sacrifice his best friend to a phrase. He spends
his time making them."

" He's made some very pretty ones about you."

" Like the one you just quoted ?"

" No, not exactly. He admires you ever so much.
He says — " She stopped, teasingly.

"What?"

" He says you could be almost anything you wished,
if you didn't wish to be everything."

" That sounds more like the school of Wetmore.
That's what you say, Alma. Well, if there were
something you wished me to be, I could be it."

" We might adapt Kingsley : e Be good, sweet man,

447

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

and let who will be clever.' ' He could not help laugh
ing. She went on : "I always thought that was the
most patronizing and exasperating thing ever addressed
to a human girl ; and we've had to stand a good deal in
our time. I should like to have it applied to the other
' sect ' a while. As if any girl that was a girl would be
good if ske had the remotest chance of being clever."

" Then you wouldn't wish me to be good ?" Beaton
asked.

" Not if you were a girl."

" You want to shock me. Well, I suppose I deserve
it. But if I were one-tenth part as good as you are,
Alma, I should have a lighter heart than I have now.
I know that I'm fickle, but I'm not false, as you think
I am."

" Who said I thought you were false ?"

" NTo one," said Beaton. " It isn't necessary, when
you look it — live it."

" Oh, dear ! I didn't know I devoted my whole time
to the subject."

" I know I'm despicable. I could tell you some
thing — the history of this day, even — that would make
you despise me." Beaton had in mind his purchase of
the overcoat, which Alma was getting in so effectively,
with the money he ought to have sent his father.
" But," he went on, darkly, with a sense that what he
was that moment suffering for his selfishness must some
how be a kind of atonement, which would finally leave
him to the guiltless enjoyment of the overcoat, "you
wouldn't believe the depths of baseness I could de
scend to."

" I would try," said Alma, rapidly shading the col
lar, " if you'd give me some hint."

Beaton had a sudden wish to pour out his remorse
to her, but he was afraid of her laughing at him. He

448

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

said to himself that this was a very wholesome fear,
and that if he could always have her at hand he should
not make a fool of himself so often. A man conceives
of such an office as the very noblest for a woman ; he
worships her for it if he is magnanimous. But Beaton
was silent, and Alma put back her head for the right
distance on her sketch. " Mr. Fulkerson thinks you
are the sublimest of human beings for advising him to
get Colonel Woodburn to interview Mr. Dryfoos about
Lindau. What have you ever done with your Judas ?"

" I haven't done anything with it. Nadel thought
he would take hold of it at one time, but he dropped
it again. After all, I don't suppose it could be popu
larized. Fulkerson wanted to offer it as a premium to
subscribers for Every Other Week, but I sat down on
that."

Alma could not feel the absurdity of this, and she
merely said, " Every Other Week seems to be going on
just the same as ever."

" Yes, the trouble has all blown over, I believe. Ful-
kerson," said Beaton, with a return to what they were
saying, " has managed the whole business very well.
But he exaggerates the value of my advice."

" Very likely," Alma suggested, vaguely. " Or, no !
Excuse me! He couldn't, he couldn't!" She laughed
delightedly at Beaton's foolish look of embarrassment.

He tried to recover his dignity in saying, " He's a
very good fellow, and he deserves his happiness."

" Oh, indeed !" said Alma, perversely. " Does any
one deserve happiness ?"

" I know I don't," sighed Beaton.

" You mean you don't get it."

" I certainly don't get it."

" Ah, but that isn't the reason."

" What is ?"

449

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" That's the secret of the universe," She bit in her
lower lip, and looked at him with eyes of gleaming
fun.

" Are you never serious ?" he asked.

" With serious people — always."

" I am serious ; and you have the secret of my hap
piness — " He threw himself impulsively forward in
his chair.

" Oh, pose, pose !" she cried.

" I won't pose," he answered, " and you have got to
listen to me. You know I'm in love with you; and
I know that once you cared for me. Can't that
time — won't it — come back again? Try to think so,
Alma!"

" E"o," she said, briefly and seriously enough.

" But that seems impossible. What is it I've done —
what have you against me ?"

" Nothing. But that time is past. I couldn't recall
it if I wished. Why did you bring it up? You've
broken your word. You know I wouldn't have let you
keep coming here if you hadn't promised never to re
fer to it."

" How could I help it ? With that happiness near us
— Fulkerson — "

" Oh, it's that? I might have known it!"

" No, it isn't that — it's something far deeper. But
if it's nothing you have against me, what is it, Alma,
that keeps you from caring for me now as you did
then ? I haven't changed."

" But I have. I shall never care for you again, Mr.
Beaton; you might as well understand it once for all.
Don't think it's anything in yourself, or that I think
you unworthy of me. I'm not so self-satisfied as that ;
I know very well that I'm not a perfect character, and
that I've no claim on perfection in anybody else. I

450

A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES,

think women who want that arc fools; they won't get
it, and they don't deserve it. But I've learned a good
deal more about myself than I knew in St. Barnaby,
and a life of work, of art, and of art alone — that's what
I've made up my mind to."

" A woman that's made up her mind to that has no
heart to hinder her !"

u Would a man have that had done so ?"

" But I don't believe you, Alma. You're merely
laughing at me. And, besides, with me you needn't
give up art. We could work together. You know how
much I admire your talent. I believe I could help it
— serve it; I would be its willing slave, and yours,
Heaven knows!"

" I don't want any slave — nor any slavery. I want
to be free — always, Xow do you sec ? I don't care
for you, and I never could in the old way ; but I should
have to care for some one more than I believe I ever
nhall to give up my work. Shall we go on?" She
looked at her sketch.

" Xo, we shall not go on," he said, gloomily, as he
rose.

" I suppose you blame me," she said, rising too.

" Oh no ! I blame no one — or only myself. I threw
my chance away."

" I'm glad you see that ; and I'm glad you did it.
You don't believe me, of course. Why do men think
life can be only the one thing to women ? And if you
come to the selfish view, who are the happy women?
I'm sure that if work doesn't fail me, health won't,
and happiness won't."

" But you could work on with me — "

" Second fiddle. Do you suppose I shouldn't be
woman enough to wish my work always less and lower
than yours? At least I've heart enough for that!"
30 451

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

i You've heart enough for anything, Alma. I was
a fool to say you hadn't."

" I think the women who keep their hearts have an
even chance, at least, of having heart — "

" Ah, there's where you're wrong 1"

" But mine isn't mine to give you, anyhow. And
now I don't want you ever to speak to me about this
again."

"Oh, there's no danger!" he cried, bitterly. "I
shall never willingly see you again."

" That's as you like, Mr. Beaton. We've had to be
very frank, but I don't see why we shouldn't be friends.
Still, we needn't, if you don't like."

" And I may come — I may come here — as — as
usual?"

" Why, if you can consistently," she said, with a
smile, and she held out her hand to him.

He went home dazed, and feeling as if it were a bad
joke that had been put upon him. At least the affair
went so deep that it estranged the aspect of his familiar
studio. Some of the things in it were not very fa
miliar ; he had spent lately a great deal on rugs, on
stuffs, on Japanese bric-a-brac. When he saw these
things in the shops he had felt that he must have them ;
that they were necessary to him ; and he was partly in
debt for them, still without having sent any of his earn
ings to pay his father. As he looked at them now he
liked to fancy something weird and conscious in them
as the silent witnesses of a broken life. He felt about
among some of the smaller objects on the mantel for
his pipe. Before he slept he was aware, in the luxury
of his despair, of a remote relief, an escape; and, after
all, the understanding he had come to with Alma was
only the explicit formulation of terms long tacit be
tween them. Beaton would have been puzzled more

452

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

than ho knew if she had taken him seriously. It was
inevitable that ho should declare himself in love with
her; hut he was not disappointed at her rejection of
his love; perhaps not so much as he would have been
at its acceptance, though he tried to think otherwise,
and to give himself airs of tragedy. He did not really
feel that the result was worse than what had gone be
fore, and it left him free.

But he did not go to the Leightons again for so long
a time that Mrs. Leighton asked Alma what had hap
pened. Alma told her.

" And he won't come any more ?" her mother sighed,
Avith reserved censure.

" Oh, I think he will. lie couldn't very Avell come
the next night. But he has the habit of coming, and
with Mr. Beaton habit is everything — even the habit
of thinking he's in love with some one."

" Alma," said her mother, " I don't think it's very
nice for a girl to let a young man keep coming to see
her after she's refused him."

" Why not, if it amuses him and doesn't hurt the
girl?"

" But it does hurt her, 'Alma. It — it's indelicate.
It isn't fair to him; it gives him hopes."

" Well, mamma, it hasn't happened in the given case
yet. If Mr. Beaton comes again, I Avon't see him, and
you can forbid him the house."

" If I could only feel sure, Alma," said her mother,
taking up another branch of the inquiry, " that you
really knew your own mind, I should be easier
about it."

" Then you can rest perfectly quiet, mamma. I
do know my own mind; and, Avhat's worse, I knoAv
Mr. Beaton's mind."

" What do yon mean ?"

453

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I moan that lie spoke to me the other night simply
because Mr. Fulkerson's engagement had broken him
all up."

" What expressions !" Mrs. Leighton lamented.

" He let it out himself," Alma went on. " And you
wouldn't have thought it was very flattering yourself.
When I'm made love to, after this, I prefer to be made
love to in an off-year, when there isn't another engaged
couple anywhere about."

" Did you tell him that, Alma ?"

" Tell him that ! What do you mean, mamma ? I
may be indelicate, but I'm not quite so indelicate as
that."

" I didn't mean you were indelicate, really, Alma,
but I wanted to warn you. I think Mr. Beaton was
very much in earnest."

" Oh, so did he !"

" And you didn't ?"

" Oh yes, for the time being. I suppose he's very
much in earnest with Miss Vance at times, and with
Miss Dryfoos at others. Sometimes he's a painter,
and sometimes he's an architect, and sometimes he's
a sculptor. He has too many gifts — too many
tastes."

" And if Miss Vance and Miss Dryfoos — "

" Oh, do say Sculpture and Architecture, mamma !
It's getting so dreadfully personal !"

" Alma, you know that I only wish to get at your
real feeling in the matter."

" And you know that I don't want to let you — es
pecially when I haven't got any real feeling in the
matter. But I should think — speaking in the abstract
entirely — that if either of those arts was ever going to
be in earnest about him, it would want his exclusive

devotion for a week at least."

454

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I didn't know," said Mrs. Leighton, " that he was
doing anything now at the others. I thought he was
entirely taken up with his work on Every Other
Week?

" Oh, he is ! he is !"

" And you certainly can't say, my dear, that he
hasn't been very kind — very useful to you, in that
matter."

" And so I ought to have said yes out of gratitude ?
Thank you, mainma ! I didn't know you held me so
cheap."

" You know whether I hold you cheap or not, Alma.
I don't want you to cheapen yourself. I don't want
you to trifle with any one. I want you to be honest
with yourself."

" Well, come now, mamma ! Suppose you begin.
I've been perfectly honest with myself, and I've been
honest with Mr. Beaton. I don't care for him, and
I've told him I didn't ; so he may be supposed to know
it. If he comes here after this, he'll come as a plain,
unostentatious friend of the family, and it's for you to
say whether he shall come in that capacity or not. I
hope you won't trifle with him, and let him get the
notion that he's coming on any other basis."

Mrs. Leighton felt the comfort of the critical
attitude far too keenly to abandon it for anything
constructive. She only said, " You know very well,
Alma, that's a matter I can have nothing to do
with."

" Then you leave him entirely to me ?"

" I hope you will regard his right to candid and
open treatment."

"He's had nothing but the most open and candid
treatment from me, mamma. It's you that wants to
play fast and loose with him. And, to tell you the

455

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

truth, I believe he would like that a good deal better;
I believe that, if there's anything he hates, it's openness
and candor."

Alma laughed, and put her arms round her mother,
who could not help laughing a little, too.

II

THE winter did not renew for Christine and Mela
the social opportunity which the spring had offered.
After the musicale at Mrs. Horn's, they both made
their party-call, as Mela said, in due season; but they
did not find Mrs. Horn at home, and neither she nor
Miss Vance came to see them after people returned to
town in the fall. They tried to believe for a time that
Mrs. Horn had not got their cards ; this pretence failed
them, and they fell back upon their pride, or rather
Christine's pride. Mela had little but her good-nature
to avail her in any exigency, and if Mrs. Horn or Miss
Vance had come to call after a year of neglect, she
would have received them as amiably as if they had
not lost a day in coming. But Christine had drawn a
Hne beyond which they would not have been forgiven;
and she had planned the words and the behavior with
which she would have punished them if they had ap
peared then. Neither sister imagined herself in any
wise inferior to them; but Christine was suspicious, at
least, and it was Mela who invented the hypothesis of
the lost cards. As nothing happened to prove or to dis
prove the fact, she said, " I move we put Coonrod
up to gittun' it out of Miss Vance, at some of their
meetun's."

" If you do," said Christine, " I'll kill you."
Christine, however, had the visits of Beaton to con
sole her, and, if these seemed to have no definite aim,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

she was willing to rest in the pleasure they gave her
vanity; but Mela had nothing. Sometimes she even
wished they were all Lack on the farm.

" It would be the best thing for both of you," said
Mrs. Dryfoos, in answer to such a burst of despera
tion. " I don't think New York is any place for
girls."

"Well, what I hate, mother," said Mela, "is, it
don't seem to be any place for young men, either."
She found this so good when she had said it that she
laughed over it till Christine was angry.

" A body would think there had never been anv joke
before."

" I don't see as it's a joke," said Mrs. Dryfoos. " It's
the plain truth."

" Oh, don't mind her, mother," said Mela. " She's
put out because her old Mr. Beaton ha'n't been round
for a couple o' weeks. If you don't watch out, that
fellow '11 give you the slip yit, Christine, after all your
pains."

" Well, there ain't anybody to give you the slip,
Mela," Christine clawed back.

" No ; I ha'n't ever set my traps for anybody." This
was what Mela said for want of a better retort; but it
was not quite true. When Kendricks came with Bea
ton to call after her father's dinner, she used all her
cunning to ensnare him, and she had him to herself
as long as Beaton stayed; Dryfoos sent down word
that he was not very well and had gone to bed. The
novelty of Mela had worn off for Kendricks, and sho
found him, as she frankly told him, not half as enter
taining as he was at Mrs. Horn's ; but she did her best
with him as the only flirtable material which had yet
come to her hand. It would have been her ideal to
have the young men stay till past midnight, and her

" 458

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

father come down-stairs in his stocking-feet and tell
them it was time to go. But they made a visit of
decorous brevity, and Kendricks did not come again.
She mot him afterward, once, as she was crossing the
pavement in Union Square to get into her coupe, and
made the most of him; but it was necessarily very
little, and so he passed out of her life without having
left any trace in her heart, though Mela had a heart-
that she would have put at the disposition of almost
any young man that wanted it. Kendricks himself,
Manhattan cockney as he was, with scarcely more out
look into the average American nature than if he had
been kept a prisoner in New York society all his days,
perceived a property in her which forbade him as a
man of conscience to trifle with her ; something earthly
good and kind, if it was simple and vulgar. In re
vising his impressions of her, it seemed to him that she
would come even to better literary effect if this were
recognized in her; and it made her sacred, in spite of
her willingness to fool and to be fooled, in her merely
human quality. After all, he saw that she wished
honestly to love and to be loved, and the lures she
iln-ow out to that end seemed to him pathetic rather
than ridiculous; he could not join Beaton in laughing
at her; and he did not like Beaton's laughing at the
other girl, either. It seemed to Kendricks, with the
code of honor which he mostly kept to himself because
he was a little ashamed to find there were so few others
like it, that if Beaton cared nothing for the other girl
— and Christine appeared simply detestable to Ken
dricks — he had better keep away from her, and not
give her the impression he was in love with her. He
rather fancied that this was the part of a gentleman,
and he could not have penetrated to that aesthetic and
moral complexity which formed the consciousness of a

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

nature like Beaton's and was chiefly a torment to itself ;
he could not have conceived of the wayward impulses
indulged at every moment in little things till the
straight highway was traversed and well-nigh lost un
der their tangle. To do whatever one likes is finally
to do nothing that one likes, even though one con
tinues to do what one will; but Kendricks, though a
sage of twenty-seven, was still too young to understand
this.

Beaton scarcely understood it himself, perhaps be
cause he was not yet twenty-seven. He only knew that
his will was somehow sick; that it spent itself in ca
prices, and brought him no happiness from the fulfil
ment of the most vehement wish. But he was aware
that his wishes grew less and less vehement; he began
to have a fear that some time he might have none at
all. It seemed to him that if he could once do some
thing that was thoroughly distasteful to himself, he
might make a beginning in the right direction; but
when he tried this on a small scale, it failed, and it
seemed stupid. Some sort of expiation was the thing he
needed, he was sure ; but he could not think of any
thing in particular to expiate ; a man could not expiate
his temperament, and his temperament was what Bea
ton decided to be at fault. He perceived that it went
deeper than even fate would have gone ; he could have
fulfilled an evil destiny and had done with it, however
terrible. His trouble was that he could not escape from
himself; and, for the most part, he justified himself in
refusing to try. After he had come to that distinct
understanding with Alma Leighton, and experienced
the relief it really gave him, he thought for a while that
if it had fallen out otherwise, and she had put him in
charge of her destiny, he might have been better able to
manage his own. But as it was, he could only drift,

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A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES

and let all other things take their course. It was neces
sary that he should go to see her afterward, to show
her that he was equal to the event ; but he did not go so
often, and he went rather oftener to the Dryfooses; it
was not easy to see Margaret Vance, except on the so
ciety terms. With much sneering and scorning, he ful
filled the duties to Mrs. Horn without which he knew
he should be dropped from her list; but one might go
to many of her Thursdays without getting many words
with her niece. Beaton hardly knew whether he wanted
many; the girl kept the charm of her innocent stylish
ness ; but latterly she wanted to talk more about social
questions than about the psychical problems that young
people usually debate so personally. Son of the work
ing-people as he was, Beaton had never cared anything
about such matters; he did not know about them or
wish to know ; he was perhaps too near them. Besides,
there was an embarrassment, at least on her part, con
cerning the Dryfooses. She was too high-minded to
blame him for having tempted her to her failure with
them by his talk about them ; but she was conscious of
avoiding them in her talk. She had decided not to
renew the effort she had made in the spring; because
she could not do them good as fellow-creatures needing
food and warmth and work, and she would not try to
befriend them socially; she had a horror of any such
futile sentimentality. She would have liked to account
to Beaton in this way for a course which she suspected
he must have heard their comments upon, but she did
not quite know how to do it ; she could not be sure how
much or how little he cared for them. Some tentative
approaches which she made toward explanation were
met with such eager disclaim of personal interest that
she knew less than before what to think ; and she turned
the talk from the sisters to the brother, whom it seemed

461

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

she still continued to meet in their common work among
the poor.

" He seems very different," she ventured.

" Oh, quite," said Beaton. " He's the kind of per
son that you might suppose gave the Catholics a hint
for the cloistral life ; he's a cloistered nature — the nat
ure that atones and suffers for. But he's awfully dull
company, don't you think? I never can get anything
out of him."

" He's very much in earnest."

" Remorselessly. We've got a profane and mun
dane creature there at the office who runs us all, and
it's shocking merely to see the contact of the two nat
ures. When Fulkerson gets to joking Dryfoos — he
likes to put his joke in the form of a pretence that
Dryfoos is actuated by a selfish motive, that he has an
eye to office, and is working up a political interest for
himself on the East Side — it's something inexpres
sible."

" I should think so," said Miss Vance, with such
lofty disapproval that Beaton felt himself included in
it for having merely told what caused it.

He could not help saying, in natural rebellion,
" Well, the man of one idea is always a little ridicu
lous."

" When his idea is right ?" she demanded. t{ A right
idea can't be ridiculous."

" Oh, I only said the man that held it was. He's
flat; he has no relief, no projection."

She seemed unable to answer, and he perceived that
he had silenced her to his own disadvantage. It ap
peared to Beaton that she was becoming a little too
exacting for comfort in her idealism. He put down
the cup of tea he had been tasting, and said, in his
solemn staccato : " I must go. Good-bye !" and got in-

4G2

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

stantly away from her, with an effect he had of having
suddenly thought of something imperative.

He went up to Mrs. Horn for a moment's hail and
farewell, and felt himself subtly detained by her
through fugitive passages of conversation with half
a dozen other people. He fancied that at crises of
this strange interview Mrs. Horn was about to be
come confidential with him, and confidential, of all
things, about her niece. She ended by not having
palpably been so. In fact, the concern in her mind
would have been difficult to impart to a young man,
and after several experiments Mrs. Horn found it im
possible to say that she wished Margaret could some
how be interested in lower things than those which
occupied her. She had watched with growing anxiety
the girl's tendency to various kinds of self-devotion.
She had dark hours in which she even feared her en
tire withdrawal from the world in a life of good works.
Before now, girls had entered the Protestant sister
hoods, which appeal so potently to the young and
generous imagination, and Margaret was of just the
temperament to be influenced by them. During the past
summer she had been unhappy at her separation from
the cares that had engrossed her more and more as their
stay in the city drew to an end in the spring, and she
had hurried her aunt back to town earlier in the fall
than she would have chosen to come. Margaret had her
correspondents among the working-women whom she be
friended. Mrs. Horn was at one time alarmed to find
that Margaret was actually promoting a strike of the
button-hole workers. This, of course, had its ludicrous
side, in connection with a young lady in good society,
and a person of even so little humor as Mrs. Horn could
not help seeing it. At the same time, she could not

help foreboding the worst from it; she was afraid that

463

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Margaret's health would give way under the strain, and
that if she did not go into a sisterhood she would at
least go into a decline. She began the winter with all
such counteractive measures as she could employ. At
an age when such things weary, she threw herself into
the pleasures of society with the hope of dragging Mar
garet after her ; and a sympathetic witness must have
followed with compassion her course from ball to ball,
from reception to reception, from parlor - reading to
parlor-reading, from musicale to musicale, from play
to play, from opera to opera. She tasted, after she had
practically renounced them, the bitter and the insipid
flavors of fashionable amusement, in the hope that Mar
garet might find them sweet, and now at the end she
had to own to herself that she had failed. It was com
ing Lent again, and the girl had only grown thinner
and more serious with the diversions that did not divert
her from the baleful works of beneficence on which
Mrs. Horn felt that she was throwing her youth away.
Margaret could have borne either alone, but together
they were wearing her out. She felt it a duty to un
dergo the pleasures her aunt appointed for her, but she
could not forego the other duties in which she found
her only pleasure.

She kept up her music still because she could em
ploy it at the meetings for the entertainment, and, as
she hoped, the elevation of her working-women ; but she
neglected the other aesthetic interests which once oc
cupied her; and, at sight of Beaton talking with her,
Mrs. Horn caught at the hope that he might somehow
be turned to account in reviving Margaret's former
interest in art. She asked him if Mr. Wetmore had
his classes that winter as usual ; and she said she wished
Margaret could be induced to go again: Mr. Wetmore
always said that she did not draw very well, but that

464

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

she had a great deal of feeling for it, and her work was
interesting. She asked, were the Leigh tons in town
again; and she murmured a regret that she had not
heen able to see anything of them, without explain
ing why; she said she had a fancy that if Margaret
knew Miss Leighton, and what she was doing, it might
stimulate her, perhaps. She supposed Miss Leighton
was still going on with her art ?

Beaton said, Oh yes, he believed so.

But his manner did not encourage Mrs. Horn to pur
sue her aims in that direction, and she said, with a
sigh, she wished lie still had a class ; she always fancied
that Margaret got more good from his instruction than
from any one else's.

He said that she was very good ; but there was really
nobody who knew half as much as Wetmore, or could
make any one understand half as much.

Mrs. Horn was afraid, she said, that Mr. Wetmore's
terrible sincerity discouraged Margaret; he would not
let her have any illusions about the outcome of what
she was doing ; and did not Mr. Beaton think that some
illusion was necessary with young people ? Of course,
it was very nice of Mr. Wetmore to be so honest, but
it did not always seem to be the wisest thing. She
begged Mr. Beaton to try to think of some one who
would be a little less severe. Her tone assumed a deeper
interest in the people who were coming up and going
away, and Beaton perceived that he was dismissed.

He went away with vanity flattered by the sense of
having been appealed to concerning Margaret, and then
he began to chafe at what she had said of Wetmore's
honesty, apropos of her wish that he still had a class
himself. Did she mean, confound her! that lie was
insincere, and would let Miss \7'ance suppose she had
more talent than she really had? The more Beaton

465

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

thought of this, the more furious he became, and the
more he was convinced that something like it had been
unconsciously if not consciously in her mind. He
framed some keen retorts, to the general effect that
with the atmosphere of illusion preserved so completely
at home, Miss Vance hardly needed it in her art studies.
Having just determined never to go near Mrs. Horn's
Thursdays again, he decided to go once more, in order
to plant this sting in her capacious but somewhat cal
lous bosom ; and he planned how he would lead the
talk up to the point from which he should launch it.

In the mean time he felt the need of some present
solace, such as only unqualified worship could give him ;
a cruel wrish to feel his power in some direction where,
even if it were resisted, it could not be overcome, drove
him on. That a woman who was to Beaton the em
bodiment of artificiality should intimate, however in
nocently — the innocence made it all the worse — that he
was less honest than Wetmore, whom he knew to be so
much more honest, was something that must be re
taliated somewhere before his self - respect could be
restored. It was only five o'clock, and he went on
up- town to the Dryfooses', though he had been there
only the night before last. He asked for the ladies,
and Mrs. Mandel received him.

" The young ladies are down-town shopping," she
said, " but I am very glad of the opportunity of see
ing you alone, Mr. Beaton. You know I lived several
years in Europe."

" Yes," said Beaton, wondering what that could have
to do with her pleasure in seeing him alone. " I be
lieve so?" He involuntarily gave his words the ques
tioning inflection.

" You have lived abroad, too, and so yon won't find
what I am going to ask so strange. Mr. Beaton, why do

466

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

you come so much to this house ?" Mrs. Mandel bent
forward with an aspect of ladylike interest and smiled.

Beaton frowned. " Why do I come so much ?"

" Yes."

" Why do I — Excuse me, Mrs. Mandel, but will
you allow me to ask why you ask ?"

" Oh, certainly. There's no reason why I shouldn't
say, for I wish you to be very frank with me. I ask
because there are two young ladies in this house; and,
in a certain way, I have to take the place of a mother
to them. I needn't explain why; you know all the
people here, and you understand. I have nothing to
say about them, but I should not be speaking to you
now if they were not all rather helpless people. They
do not know the world they have come to live in here,
and they cannot help themselves or one another. But
you do know it, Mr. Beaton, and I am sure you know
just how much or how little you mean by coming here.
You are either interested in one of these young girls
or you are not. If you are, I have nothing more to
say. If you are not — " Mrs. Mandel continued to
smile, but the smile had grown more perfunctory, and
it had an icy gleam.

Beaton looked at her with surprise that he gravely
kept to himself. He had always regarded her as a
social nullity, with a kind of pity, to be sure, as a
civilized person living among such people as the Dry-
f ooses, but not without a humorous contempt ; he had
thought of her as Mandel, and sometimes as Old Man-
del, though she was not half a score of years his senior,
and was still well on the sunny side of forty. He
reddened, and then turned an angry pallor. " Excuse
me again, Mrs. Mandel. Do you ask this from the
young ladies ?"

" Certainly not," she said, with the best temper, and
31 467

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with something in her tone that convicted Beaton of
vulgarity in putting his question of her authority in
the form of a sneer. "As I have suggested, they would
hardly know how to help themselves at all in such a
matter. I have no objection to saying that I ask it
from the father of the young ladies. Of course, in and
for myself I should have no right to know anything
about your affairs. I assure you the duty of knowing
isn't very pleasant." The little tremor in her clear
voice struck Beaton as something rather nice.

" I can very well believe that, Mrs. Mandel," he said,
with a dreamy sadness in his own. He lifted his eyes
and looked into hers. " If I told you that I cared noth
ing about them in the way you intimate ?"

u Then I should prefer to let you characterize your
own conduct in continuing to come here for the year
past, as you have done, and tacitly leading them on to
infer differently." They both mechanically kept up
the fiction of plurality in speaking of Christine, but
there was no doubt in the mind of either which of the
young ladies the other meant.

A good many thoughts went through Beaton's mind,
and none of them were flattering. He had not been
unconscious that the part he had played toward this
girl was ignoble, and that it had grown meaner as the
fancy which her beauty had at first kindled in him had
grown cooler. He was aware that of late he had been
amusing himself with her passion in a way that was
not less than cruel, not because he wished to do so, but
because he was listless and wished nothing. He rose in
saying : " I might be a little more lenient than you
think, Mrs. Mandel ; but I won't trouble you with any
palliating theory. I will not come any more."

He bowed, and Mrs. Mandel said, " Of course, it's
only your action that I am concerned with."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

She seemed to him merely triumphant, and he could
not conceive what it had cost her to nerve herself up
to her too easy victory. He left Mrs. Mandel to a far
harder lot than had fallen to him, and he went away
hating her as an enemy who had humiliated him at
a moment when he particularly needed exalting. It
was really very simple for him to stop going to see
Christine Dryfoos, but it was not at all simple for
Mrs. Mandel to deal with the consequences of his not
coming. He only thought how lightly she had stopped
him, and the poor woman whom he had left trembling
for what she had been obliged to do embodied for him
the conscience that accused him of unpleasant things.

" By heavens ! this is piling it up," he said to him
self through his set teeth, realizing how it had hap
pened right on top of that stupid insult from Mrs.
Horn. Now he should have to give up his place on
Every Oilier Week; he could not keep that, under the
circumstances, even if some pretence were not made to
get rid of him; he must hurry and anticipate any
such pretence; he must see Fulkerson at once; he
wondered where he should find him at that hour. He
thought, with bitterness so real that it gave him a kind
of tragical satisfaction, how certainly he could find him
a little later at Mrs. Leighton's; and Fulkerson's hap
piness became an added injury.

The thing had, of course, come about just at the
wrong time. There never had been a time when Bea
ton needed money more, when he had spent what he
had and what he expected to have so recklessly. Ho
was in debt to Fulkerson personally and officially for
advance payments of salary. The thought of sending
money home made him break into a scoffing laugh,
which he turned into a cough in order to deceive the
passers. What sort of face should he go with to Ful-

469

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

kcrson and tell him that he renounced his employment
on Every Oilier Week; and what should he do when
he had renounced it ? Take pupils, perhaps ; open a
class ? A lurid conception of a class conducted on those
principles of shameless flattery at which Mrs. Horn had
hinted — he believed now she had meant to insult him
— presented itself. Why should not he act upon the
suggestion ? He thought — with loathing for the whole
race of women - dabblers in art — how easy the thing
would be: as easy as to turn back now and tell that-
old fool's girl that he loved her, and rake in half his
millions. Why should not he do that? No one else
cared for him ; and at a year's end, probably, one wom
an would be like another as far as the love was con
cerned, and probably he should not be more tired if
the woman were Christine Dryfoos than if she were
Margaret Vance. He kept Alma Leighton out of the
question, because at the bottom of his heart he believed
that she must be forever unlike every other woman to
him.

The tide of his confused and aimless reverie had
carried him far down-town, he thought; but when he
looked up from it to see where he was he found him
self on Sixth Avenue, only a little below Thirty-ninth
Street, very hot and blown; that idiotic fur overcoat
was stifling. He could not possibly walk down to
Eleventh; he did not want to walk even to the Ele
vated station at Thirty-fourth ; he stopped at the corner
to wait for a surface-car, and fell again into his bitter
fancies. After a while he roused himself and looked
up the track, but there was no car coming. He found
himself beside a policeman, who was lazily swinging
his club by its thong from his wrist.

"When do you suppose a car will be along?" he
asked, rather in a general sarcasm of the absence of the

470

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

cars than in any special belief that the policeman could
tell him.

The policeman waited to discharge his tobacco-juice
into the gutter. u In about a week," he said, non
chalantly.

u What's the matter?" asked Beaton, wondering what
the joke could be.

" Strike," said the policeman. His interest in Bea
ton's ignorance seemed to overcome his contempt of it.
" Knocked off everywhere this morning except Third
Avenue and one or two cross-town lines." He spat
again and kept his bulk at its incline over the gutter
to glance at a group of men on the corner below. They
were neatly dressed, and looked like something better
than working-men, and they had a holiday air of being
in their best clothes.

" Some of the strikers ?" asked Beaton.

The policeman nodded.

"Any trouble yet?"

" There won't be any trouble till we begin to move
the cars," said the policeman.

Beaton felt a sudden turn of his rage toward the men
whose action would now force him to walk five blocks
and mount the stairs of the Elevated station. " If
you'd take out eight or ten of those fellows," he said,
ferociously, " and set them up against a wall and shoot
them, you'd save a great deal of bother."

" I guess we sha'n't have to shoot much," said the
policeman, still swinging his locust. " Anyway, we
sha'n't begin it. If it comes to a fight, though," he
said, with a look at the men under the scooping rim
of his helmet, " we can drive the whole six thousand
of 'em into the East River without pull in' a trigger."

" Are there six thousand in it ?"

" About."

471

A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

u What do the infernal fools expect to live on ?"

" The interest of their money, I suppose," said the
officer, with a grin of satisfaction in his irony. " Itrs
got to run its course. Then they'll come back with
their heads tied up and their tails between their legs,
and plead to be taken on again."

" If I was a manager of the roads," said Beaton,
thinking of how much he was already inconvenienced
by the strike, and obscurely connecting it as one of the
series with the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of
Mrs. Horn and Mrs. Mandel, " I would see them starve
before I'd take them back — every one of them."

" Well," said the policeman, impartially, as a man
might whom the companies allowed to ride free, but
who had made friends with a good many drivers and
conductors in the course of his free riding, " I guess
that's what the roads would like to do if they could ;
but the men are too many for them, and there ain't
enough other men to take their places."

" "No matter," said Beaton, severely. " They can
bring in men from other places."

" Oh, they'll do that fast enough," said the police
man.

A man came out of the saloon on the corner where
the strikers were standing, noisy drunk, and they be-,
gan, as they would have said, to have some fun with
him. The policeman left Beaton, and sauntered slow
ly down toward the group as if in the natural course
of an afternoon ramble. On the other side of the street
Beaton could see another officer sauntering up from the
block below. Looking up and down the avenue, so si
lent of its horse-car bells, he saw a policeman at every
corner. It was rather impressive.

Ill

THE strike made a good deal of talk in the office
of Every Other Week — that is, it made Fulkerson talk
a good deal. He congratulated himself that he was not
personally incommoded by it, like some of the fellows
who lived up-town, and had not everything under one
roof, as it were. He enjoyed the excitement of it, and
he kept the office - boy running out to buy the extras
which the newsmen came crying through the street al
most every hour with a lamentable, unintelligible noise.
He read not only the latest intelligence of the strike,
but the editorial comments on it, which praised the
firm attitude of both parties, and the admirable meas
ures taken by the police to preserve order. Fulkerson
enjoyed the interviews with the police captains and the
leaders of the strike; he equally enjoyed the attempts
of the reporters to interview the road managers, which
were so graphically detailed, and with such a fine feel
ing for the right use of scare-heads as to have almost
the value of direct expression from them, though it
seemed that they had resolutely refused to speak. He
said, at second-hand from the papers, that if the men
behaved themselves and respected the rights of prop
erty, they would have public sympathy with them every
time; but just as soon as they began to interfere with
the roads' right to manage their own affairs in their
own way, they must be put down with an iron hand ;
the phrase " iron hand " did Fulkerson almost as much

473

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

good as if it had never been used before. News began
to come of fighting between the police and the strikers
when the roads tried to move their cars with men im
ported from Philadelphia, and then Fnlkerson rejoiced
at the splendid courage of the police. At the same
time, he believed what the strikers said, and that the
trouble was not made by them, but by gangs of roughs
acting without their approval. In this juncture ho
was relieved by the arrival of the State Board of Ar
bitration, which took up its quarters, with a great many
scare-heads, at one of the principal hotels, and invited
the roads and the strikers to lay the matter in dispute
before them ; he said that now we should see the work
ing of the greatest piece of social machinery in modern
times. But it appeared to work only in the alacrity
of the strikers to submit their grievance. The roads
were as one road in declaring that there was nothing to
arbitrate, and that they were merely asserting their
right to manage their own affairs in their own way.
One of the presidents was reported to have told a mem
ber of the Board, who personally summoned him, to
get out and to go about his business. Then, to Ful-
kerson's extreme disappointment, the august tribunal,
acting on behalf of the sovereign people in the inter
est of peace, declared itself powerless, and got out, and
would, no doubt, have gone about its business if it had
had any. Fulkorson did not know what to say, perhaps
because the extras did not; but March laughed at this
result.

" It's a good deal like the military manoeuvre of the
King of France and his forty thousand men. I sup
pose somebody told him at the top of the hill that there
was nothing to arbitrate, and to get out and go about
his business, and that was the reason he marched down
after he had marched up with all that ceremony. What

474

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

amuses me is to find that in an affair of this kind the
roads have rights and the strikers have rights, but the
public has no rights at all. The roads and the strikers
are allowed to fight out a private war in our midst —
as thoroughly and precisely a private war as any we
despise the Middle Ages for having tolerated — as any
street war in Florence or Verona — and to fight it out
at our pains and expense, and we stand by like sheep
and wait till they get tired. It's a funny attitude for
a city of fifteen hundred thousand inhabitants."

" What would you do ?" asked Fulkerson, a good
deal daunted by this view of the case.

"Do? Nothing. Hasn't the State Board of Ar
bitration declared itself powerless ? We have no hold
upon the strikers; and we're so used to being snubbed
and disobliged by common carriers that we have for
gotten our hold on the roads and always allow them
to manage their own affairs in their own way, quite as
if we had nothing to do with them and they owed us
no services in return for their privileges."

" That's a good deal so," said Fulkerson, disordering
his hair. " Well, it's nuts for the colonel nowadays.
He says if he was boss of this town he would seize tho
roads on behalf of the people, and man 'em with police
men, and run 'em till the managers had come to terms
with the strikers ; and he'd do that every time there was
a strike."

" Doesn't that rather savor of the paternalism he
condemned in Lindau ?" asked March.

" I don't know. It savors of horse sense."

" You are pretty far gone, Fulkerson. T thought
you were the most engaged man I ever saw ; but I guess
you're more father-in-lawed. And before you're mar
ried, too."

" Well, the colonel's a glorious old fellow, March.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

I wish he had the power to do that thing, just for
the fun of looking on while he waltzed in. He's on
the keen jump from morning till night, and he's up
late and early to see the row. I'm afraid he'll get shot
at some of the fights ; he sees them all ; I can't get any
show at them: haven't seen a brickbat shied or a club
swung yet. Have you ?"

" No, I find I can philosophize the situation about
as well from the papers, and that's what I really want
to do, I suppose. Besides, I'm solemnly pledged by
Mrs. March not to go near any sort of crowd, under
penalty of having her bring the children and go with
me. Her theory is that we must all die together; the
children haven't been at school since the strike began.
There's no precaution that Mrs. March hasn't used.
She watches me whenever I go out, and sees that I start
straight for this office."

Fulkerson laughed and said : " Well, it's probably
the only thing that's saved your life. Have you seen
anything of Beaton lately ?"

" No. You don't mean to say lie's killed !"

" Not if he knows it. But I don't know — What
do you say, March? What's the reason you couldn't
get us up a paper on the strike ?"

" I knew it would fetch round to Every Other Week,
somehow."

" No, but seriously. There '11 be plenty of news
paper accounts. But you could treat it in the his
torical spirit — like something that happened several
centuries ago; De Foe's Plague of London style.
Heigh? What made me think of it was Beaton. If
I could get hold of him, you two could go round to
gether and take down its aesthetic aspects. It's a big
thing, March, this strike is. I tell you it's imposing
to have a private war, as you say, fought out this way,

?476

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

in the heart of New York, and New York not minding
it a bit. See? Might take that view of it. With
your descriptions and Beaton's sketches — well, it
would just be the greatest card! Come! What do
you say ?"

"' Will you undertake to make it right with Mrs.
March if I'm killed and she and the children are not
killed with me ?"

" Well, it would be difficult. I wonder how it would
do to get Kendricks to do the literary part?"

" I've no doubt he'd jump at the chance. I've yet
to see the form of literature that Kendricks wouldn't
lay down his life for."

" Say !" March perceived that Fulkerson was about
to vent another inspiration, and smiled patiently.
" Look here ! What's the reason we couldn't get one
of the strikers to write it up for us ?"

" Might have a symposium of strikers and presi
dents," March suggested.

" No ; I'm in earnest. They say some of those fel
lows — especially the foreigners — are educated men. I
know one fellow — a Bohemian — that used to edit a
Bohemian newspaper here. He could write it out in
his kind of Dutch, and we could get Lindau to trans
late it."

" I guess not," said March, dryly.

" Why not ? He'd do it for the cause, wouldn't he ?
Suppose you put it up on him the next time you see
him."

" I don't see Lindau any more," said March. He
added, " I guess he's renounced mo along with Mr.
Dryfoos's money."

" Pshaw ! You don't mean he hasn't been round
since 3"

" He came for a while, but he's left off coming now.

477

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

I don't feel particularly gay about it," March said,
with some resentment of Fulkerson's grin. u He's left
me in debt to him for lessons to the children."

Fulkerson laughed out. " Well, he is the greatest
old fool ! Who'd 'a' thought he'd V been in earnest
with those i brincibles ' of his ? But I suppose there
have to be just such cranks; it takes all kinds to make
a world."

" There has to be one such crank, it seems," March
partially assented. " One's enough for me."

" I reckon this thing is nuts for Lindau, too," said
Fulkerson. " Why, it must act like a schooner of beer
on him all the while, to see ' gabidal ' embarrassed like
it is by this strike. It must make old Lindau feel like
he was back behind those barricades at Berlin. Well,
he's a splendid old fellow; pity he drinks, as I re
marked once before."

When March left the office he did not go home so
directly as he came, perhaps because Mrs. March's eye
was not on him. He was very curious about some
aspects of the strike, whose importance, as a great social
convulsion, he felt people did not recognize ; and, with
his temperance in everything, he found its negative
expressions as significant as its more violent phases. He
had promised his wife solemnly that he would keep away
from these, and he had a natural inclination to keep
his promise; he had no wish to be that peaceful spec
tator who always gets shot when there is any firing 011
a mob. He interested himself in the apparent indif
ference of the mighty city, which kept on about its busi
ness as tranquilly as if the private war being fought out
in its midst were a vague rumor of Indian troubles on
the frontier; and he realized how there might once
have been a street feud of forty years in Florence with
out interfering materially with the industry and pros-

478

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

perity of the city. On Broadway there was a silence
where a jangle and clatter of horse-car bells and hoofs
had been, but it was not very noticeable; and on the
avenues, roofed by the elevated roads, this silence of
the surface tracks was not noticeable at all in the roar
of the trains overhead. Some of the cross-town cars
were beginning to run again, with a policeman on the
rear of each; on the Third Avenue line, operated by
non - union men, who had not struck, there were two
policemen beside the driver of every car, and two be
side the conductor, to protect them from the strikers.
But there Were no strikers in sight, and on Second
Avenue they stood quietly about in groups on the cor
ners. While March watched them at a safe distance, a
car laden with policemen came down the track, but
none of the strikers offered to molest it. In their
simple Sunday best, March thought them very quiet,
decent-looking people, and he could well believe that
they had nothing to do with the riotous outbreaks in
other parts of the city. He could hardly believe that
there were any such outbreaks ; he began more and
more to think them mere newspaper exaggerations in
the absence of any disturbance, or the disposition to it,
that he could see. He walked on to the East River:
Avenues A, B, and C presented the same quiet aspect
as Second Avenue ; groups of men stood on the corners,
and now and then a police-laden car was brought un
molested down the tracks before them; they looked at
it and talked together, and some laughed, but there was
no trouble.

March got a cross-town car, and came back to the
West Side. A policeman, looking very sleepy and tired,
lounged on the platform.

" I suppose you'll be glad when this cruel war is
over," March suggested, as he got in.

479

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

The officer gave him a surly glance and made him no
answer.

His behavior, from a man born to the joking give
and take of our life, impressed March. It gave him a
fine sense of the ferocity which he had read of the
French troops putting on toward the populace just be
fore the coup d'etat; he began to feel like the populace ;
but he struggled with himself and regained his char
acter of philosophical observer. In this character he
remained in the car and let it carry him by the corner
where he ought to have got out and gone home, and
let it keep on with him to one of the farthermost tracks
westward, where so much of the fighting was reported
to have taken place. But everything on the way was
as quiet as on the East Side.

Suddenly the car stopped with so quick a turn of
the brake that he was half thrown from his seat, and
the policeman jumped down from the platform and ran
forward.

IV

DRYFOOS sat at breakfast that morning with Mrs.
Mandel as usual to pour out his coifce. Conrad had
already gone down-town ; the two girls lay abed much
later than their father breakfasted, and their mother
had gradually grown too feeble to come down till lunch.
Suddenly Christine appeared at the door. Her face
was white to the edges of her lips, arid her eyes were
blazing.

" Look here, father ! Have you been saying any
thing to Mr. Beaton ?"

The old man looked up at her across his coffee-cup
through his frowning brows. " No."

Mrs. Mandel dropped her eyes, and the spoon shook
in her hand.

" Then what's the reason he don't come here any
more 2" demanded the girl ; and her glance darted from
her father to Mrs. Mandel. " Oh, it's you, is it? I'd
like to know who told you to meddle in other people's
business ?"

" I did," said Dryfoos, savagely. " 7 told her to
ask him what he wanted here, and he said he didn't
want anything, and he stopped coming. That's all. I
did it myself."

" Oh, you did, did you ?" said the girl, scarcely less
insolently than she had spoken to Mrs. Mandel. " I
should like to know what you did it for ? I'd like to
know what made you think I wasn't able to take care
of myself. I just knew somebody had been meddling,

481

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

but I didn't suppose it was you. I can manage my own
affairs in my own way, if you please, and I'll thank
you after this to leave me to myself in what don't con
cern you."

"Don't concern me? You impudent jade!" her
father began.

Christine advanced from the doorway toward the
table; she had her hands closed upon what seemed
trinkets, some of which glittered and dangled from
them. She said, " Will you go to him and tell him
that this meddlesome minx, here, had no business to
say anything about me to him, and you take it all
back?"

"No!" shouted the old man. "And if—"

" That's all I want of you /" the girl shouted in her
turn. " Here are your presents." With both hands
she flung the jewels — pins and rings and earrings and
bracelets — among the breakfast-dishes, from which some
of them sprang to the floor. She stood a moment to
pull the intaglio ring from the finger where Beaton
put it a year ago, and dashed that at her father's plate.
Then she whirled out of the room, and they heard her
running up-stairs.

The old man made a start toward her, but he fell
back in his chair before she was gone, and, with a
fierce, grinding movement of his jaws, controlled him
self. " Take — take those things up," he gasped to Mrs.
Mandel. He seemed unable to rise again from his
chair; but when she asked him if he were unwell, ho
said no, with an air of offence, and got quickly to his
feet. He mechanically picked up the intaglio ring
from the table while he stood there, and put it on
his little finger; his hand was not much bigger than
Christine's. " How do you suppose she found it out?"
he asked, after a moment.

482

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" She seems to have merely suspected it," said Mrs.
.Mandel, in a tremor, and with the fright in her eyes
which Christine's violence had brought there.

"Well, it don't make any difference. She had to
know, somehow, and now she knows." He started
toward the door of the library, as if to go into the
hall, where his hat and coat hung.

"Mr. Dryfoos," palpitated Mrs. Mandel, "I can't
remain here, after the language your daughter has used
to me — I can't let you leave me — I — I'm afraid of
her—

" Lock yourself up, then," said the old man, rudely,
lie added, from the hall before he went out, " I reckon
she'll quiet down now."

He took the Elevated road. The strike seemed a
vary far-off thing, though the paper he bought to look
up the stock-market was full of noisy typography about
yesterday's troubles on the surface lines. Among the
millions in Wall Street there was some joking and some
.swearing, but not much thinking, about the six thou
sand men who had taken such chances in their attempt
to better their condition. Dryfoos heard nothing of the
strike in the lobby of the Stock Exchange, where he
spent two or three hours watching a favorite stock of
his go up and go down under the betting. By the time
the Exchange closed it had risen eight points, and on
this and some other investments he was five thousand
dollars richer than he had been in the morning. But
he had expected to be richer still, and he was by no
means satisfied with his luck. All through the excite
ment of his winning and losing had played the dull,
murderous rage he felt toward the child who had defied
him, and when the game was over and he started home
his rage mounted into a sort of frenzy ; lie would teach
her, he would break her. He walked a long way with-
32 483

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

<>ut thinking, and then waited for a car. 2Jone canu1,
and lie hailed a passing coupe.

" What has got all the cars'*" he demanded of the
driver, who jumped down from his box to open the
door for him and get his direction.

" Been away ?" asked the driver. " Hasn't been any
car along for a week. Strike."

" Oh yes," said Dryfoos. He felt suddenly giddy,
and he remained staring at the driver after he had
taken his seat.

The man asked, "Where to?"

Dryfoos could not think of his street or number, and
he said, with uncontrollable fury: "I told you once!
Go up to West Eleventh, and drive along slow on the
south side; I'll show you the place."

He could not remember the number of Every Other
We-eJc office, where he suddenly decided to stop before
he went home. He wished to see Fulkereon, and ask
him something about Beaton: whether he had been
about lately, and whether he had dropped any hint of
what had happened concerning Christine ; Dryfoos be
lieved that Fulkerson was in the fellow's confidence.

There was nobody but Conrad in the counting-room,
whither Dryfoos returned after glancing into Fulker-
son's empty office. " Where's Fulkerson ?" he asked,
sitting down with his hat on.

" He went out a few moments ago," said Conrad,
glancing at the clock. " I'm afraid he isn't coming
back again to-day, if you wanted to see him."

Dryfoos twisted his head siclewise and upward to in
dicate March's room. " That other fellow out, too ?"

"He went just before Mr. Fulkerson," answered
Conrad.

" Do you generally knock off here in the middle of
the afternoon*" asked the. old man.

484

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No," said Conrad, as patiently as if his father had
not been there a score of times and found the whole
staff of Every Oilier Week at work between four and
five. " Mr. March, you know, always takes a good deal
of his work home with him, and I suppose Mr. Ful-
kerson went out so early because there isn't much doing
to-day. Perhaps it's the strike that makes it dull."

" The strike — yes ! It's a pretty piece of business
to have everything thrown out because a parcel of lazy
hounds want a chance to lay off and get drunk." Dry-
foos seemed to think Conrad would make some answer
to this, but the young man's mild face merely saddened,
and he said nothing. " I've got a coupe out there now
that I had to take because I couldn't get a car. If I
had my way I'd have a lot of those vagabonds hung.
They're waiting to get the city into a snarl, and then
rob the houses — pack of dirty, worthless whelps. They
ought to call out the militia, and fire into 'em. Club
bing is too good for them." Conrad was still silent,
and his father sneered, " But I reckon you don't think
so."

" I think the strike is useless," said Conrad.

" Oh, you do, do you ? Comin' to your senses a lit
tle. Gettin' tired walkin' so much. I should like to
know what your gentlemen over there on the East Side
think about the strike, anyway."

The young fellow dropped his eyes. " I am not
authorized to speak for them."

" Oh, indeed ! And perhaps you're not authorized
to speak for yourself?"

" Father, you know we don't agree about these things.
I'd rather not talk — "

" But I'm goin' to make you talk this time !" cried
Dryfoos, striking the arm of the chair he sat in with
the side of his fist. A maddening thought of Christine

485

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

came over him. " As long as you eat my bread, you
have got to do as I say. I won't have my children
telling me what I shall do and sha'n't do, or take on
airs of being holier than me. INow, you just speak up !
Do you think those loafers are right, or don't you?
Come!"

Conrad apparently judged it best to speak. " I
think they were very foolish to strike — at this time,
when the Elevated roads can do the work."

" Oh, at this time, heigh ! And I suppose they think
over there on the East Side that it 'd been wise to strike
before we got the Elevated.''7 Conrad again refused
to answer, and his father roared, kk What do you
think?"

" I think a strike is always bad business. It's war ;
but sometimes there don't seem any other way for the
working-men to get justice. They say that sometimes
strikes do raise the wages, after a while."

" Those lazy devils were paid enough already/'
shrieked the old man. " They got two dollars a
day. How much do you think they ought to 'a' got ?
Twenty?"

Conrad hesitated, with a beseeching look at his
father. But he decided to answer. " The men say
that with partial work, and fines, and other things,
they get sometimes a dollar, and sometimes ninety
cents a day."

" They lie, and you know they lie," said his father,
rising and coming toward him. " And what do you
think the upshot of it all will be, after they've ruined
business for another week, and made people hire hacks,
and stolen the money of honest men ? How is it going
to end ?"

" They will have to give in."

"Oh, give in, heigh! And what will you say then,

486

A 1IAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

I should like to know ( How will you feel about it
then? Speak!"

" I shall feel as I do now. 1 know you don't think
that way, and I don't blame you — or anybody. But if
I have got to say how I shall feel, why, I shall feel
sorry they didn't succeed, for I believe they have a
righteous cause, though they go the wrong way to help
themselves."

His father came close to him, his eyes blazing, his
teeth set. " Do you dare to say that to me?"

" Yes. I can't help it. I pity them ; my whole
heart is with those poor men."

" You impudent puppy !" shouted the old man. He
lifted his hand and struck his son in the face. Conrad
caught his hand with his own left, and, while the blood
began to trickle from a wound that Christine's intaglio
ring had made in his temple, he looked at him with
a kind of grieving wonder, and said, " Father !"

The old man wrenched his fist away and ran out of
the house. He remembered his address now, and he
gave it as he plunged into the coupe. He trembled
Avith his evil passion, and glared out of the windows at
the passers as he drove home; he only saw Conrad's
mild, grieving, wondering eyes, and the blood slowly
trickling from the wound in his temple.

Conrad went to the neat-set bowl in Fulkerson's com
fortable room and washed the blood away, and kept
bathing the wound with the cold water till it stopped
bleeding. The cut was not deep, and he thought he
would not put anything on it. After a while he locked
up the office and started out, he hardly knew where.
But he walked on, in the direction he had taken, till
he found himself in Union Square, on the pavement
in front of Brentano's. It seemed to him that he heard
some one calling gently to him, " Mr. Dryfoos !"

487

CONRAD looked confusedly around, and the same
voice said again, " Mr. Dryfoos !" and he saw that it
was a lady speaking to him from a coupe beside the
curbing, and then he saw that it was Miss Vance.

She smiled when he gave signs of having discovered
her, and came up to the door of her carriage. " I am
so glad to meet you. I have been longing to talk to
somebody ; nobody seems to feel about it as I do. Oh,
isn't it horrible ? Must they fail ? I saw cars running
on all the lines as I came across; it made me sick at
heart. Must those brave fellows give in ? And every
body seems to hate them so — I can't bear it." Her
face was estranged with excitement, and there were
traces of tears on it. " You must think me almost
crazy to stop you in the street this way; but when I
caught sight of you I had to speak. I kneAV you would
sympathize — I kneAV you would feel as I do. Oh, how
can anybody help honoring those poor men for standing
by one another as they do? They are risking all they
have in the world for the sake of justice! Oh, they
are true heroes! They are staking the bread of their
wives and children on the dreadful chance they've
taken ! But no one seems to understand it. No one
seems to see that they are willing to suffer more now
that other poor men may suffer less hereafter. And
those wretched creatures that are coming in to take
their places — those traitors — "

488

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" We can't blame them for wanting to earn a living,
Miss Vance," said Conrad.

" No, no ! I don't blame them. Who am I, to do
such a thing? It's we — people like me, of my class
—who make the poor betray one another. But this
dreadful fighting — this hideous paper is full of it!"
She held up an extra, crumpled with her nervous read
ing. " Can't something be done to stop it ? Don't you
think that if some one went among them, and tried
to make them see how perfectly hopeless it was to
resist the companies and drive off the new men, he
might do some good ? I have wanted to go and try ;
but I am a woman, and I mustn't! I shouldn't be
afraid of the strikers, but I'm afraid of what people
would say!" Conrad kept pressing his handkerchief
to the cut in his temple, which he thought might be
bleeding, and now she noticed this. " Are you hurt,
Mr. Dryfoos? You look so pale."

" No, it's nothing — a little scratch I've got."

" Indeed, you look pale. Have you a carriage ? How
will you get home ? Will you get in here with me
and let me drive you ?"

" No, no," said Conrad, smiling at her excitement.
" I'm perfectly well—"

" And you don't think I'm foolish and wicked for
stopping you here and talking in this way? But I
know you feel as I do!"

" Yes, I feel as you do. You are right — right in
every way — I mustn't keep you— Good-bye." He
stepped back to bow, but she put her beautiful hand out
of the window7, and when he took it she wrung his hand
hard.

" Thank you, thank you ! You are good and you
are just! But no one can do anything. It's useless!"

The type of irreproachable coachman on the box

489

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

whose respectability had suffered through the strange
behavior of his mistress in this interview drove quick
ly off at her signal, and Conrad stood a moment look
ing after the carriage. His heart was full of joy; it
leaped ; he thought it would burst. As he turned to
walk away it seemed to him as if he mounted upon
the air. The trust she had shown him, the praise she
had given him, that crush of the hand: he hoped noth
ing, he formed no idea from it, but it all filled him
with love that cast out the pain and shame he had been
suffering. He believed that he could never be unhappy
any more; the hardness that was in his mind toward
his father went out of it; he saw how sorely he had
tried him; he grieved that he had done it, but the
means, the difference of his feeling about the cause of
their quarrel, Jie was solemnly glad of that since she
.shared it. He was only sorry for his father. " Poor
father!" he said under his broath as he wont along.
He explained to her about his father in his reverie, and
she pitied his father, too.

He was walking over toward the West Side, aim
lessly at first, and then at times with the longing to
do something to save those mistaken men from them
selves forming itself into a purpose. Was not that
what she meant when she bewailed her woman's help
lessness? She must have wished him to try if he,
being a man, could not do something; or if she did not,
still he would try, and if she heard of it she would
recall what she had said and would be glad he had
understood her so. Thinking of her pleasure in what
he was going to do, he forgot almost what it was ; but
when he came to a street-car track he remembered it,
and looked up and down to see if there were any tur
bulent gathering of men whom he might mingle with
and help to keep from violence. He saw none any-

490

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

where; and then suddenly, as if at the same moment,
for in his exalted mood all events had a dream-like
simultaneity, he stood at the corner of an avenue, and
in the middle of it, a little way off, was a street-car,
and around the car a tumult of shouting, cursing,
struggling men. The driver was lashing his horses
forward, and a policeman was at their heads, with the
conductor, pulling them; stones, clubs, brickbats hailed
upon the car, the horses, the men trying to move them.
The mob closed upon them in a body, and then a patrol-
wagon whirled up from the other side, and a squad of
policemen, leaped out and began to club the rioters.
Conrad could see how they struck them under the rims
of their hats; the blows on their skulls sounded as if
they had fallen on stone; the rioters ran in all di
rections.

One of the officers rushed up toward the corner where
Conrad stood, and then he saw at his side a tall, old
man, with a long, white beard, who was calling out at
the policemen: "Ah, yes! Glup the strikerss — gif it
to them ! Why don't you co and glup the bresidents
that insonlt your lawss, and gick your Boart of Ar-
pidration out-of-toors ? Glup the strikerss — they cot
no friendts ! They cot no money to pribe you, to dreat
you!"

The officer lifted his club, and the old man threw
his left arm up to shield his head. Conrad recognized
Lindau, and now he saw the empty sleeve dangle in the
air over the stump of his wrist. He heard a shot in
that turmoil beside the car, and something seemed to
strike him in the breast. He was going to say to the
policeman : " Don't strike him ! Tie's an old soldier !
You see he has no hand !" but he could not speak, he
could not move his tongue. The policeman stood there ;
he saw his face: it was not bad, not cruel; it was like

401

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

the face of a statue, fixed, perdurable — a mere image
of irresponsible and involuntary authority. Then Con
rad fell forward, pierced through the heart by that shot
fired from the car.

March heard the shot as he scrambled out of his
car, and at the same moment he saw Lindau drop under
the club of the policeman, who left him where he fell
and joined the rest of the squad in pursuing the rioters.
The fighting round the car in the avenue ceased; the
driver whipped his horses into a gallop, and the place
was left empty.

March would have liked to run ; he thought how his
wife had implored him to keep away from the rioting;
but he could not have left Lindau lying there if he
would. Something stronger than his will drew him to
the spot, and there he saw Conrad dead beside the old
man.

VI

IN the cares which Mrs. March shared with her hus
band that night she was supported partly by principle,
but mainly by the potent excitement which bewildered
Conrad's family and took all reality from what had
happened. It was nearly midnight when the Marches
left them and walked away toward the Elevated station
with Eulkerson. Everything had been done, by that
time, that could be done ; and Eulkerson was not with
out that satisfaction in the business-like despatch of all
the details which attends each step in such an affair
and helps to make death tolerable even to the most
sorely stricken. We are creatures of the moment; we
live from one little space to another ; and only one in
terest at a time fills these. Eulkerson was cheerful
when they got into the street, almost gay; and Mrs.
March experienced a rebound from her depression
which she felt that she ought not to have experienced.
But she condoned the offence a little in herself, because
her husband remained so constant in his gravity; and,
pending the final accounting he must make her for
having been where he could be of so much use from
the first instant of the calamity, she was tenderly,
gratefully proud of all the use he had been to Conrad's
family, and especially his miserable old father. To
her mind, March was the principal actor in the whole
affair, and much more important in having seen it than
those who had suffered in it. In fact, he had suffered

incomparably.

493

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well, well," said Fulkcrson. " They'll get along
now. We've done all we could, and there's nothing left
but for them to bear it. Of course it's awful, but I
guess it '11 come out all right. I mean," he added,
" they'll pull through now."

" I suppose," said March, " that nothing is put on
us that we can't bear. But I should think," he went
on, musingly, " that when God sees what we poor finite
creatures can bear, hemmed round with this eternal
darkness of death, He must respect us."

" Basil !" said his wife. But in her heart she drew
nearer to him for the words she thought she ought to
rebuke him for.

" Oh, I know," he said, " we school ourselves to
despise human nature. But God did not make us des
picable, and I say, whatever end He meant us for, He
must have some such thrill of joy in our adequacy to
fate as a father feels when his son shows himself a
man. When I think what we can be if we must, I
can't believe the least of us shall finally perish."

" Oh, I reckon the Almighty won't scoop any of us,"
said Fulkerson, with a piety of his own.

" That poor boy's father !" sighed Mrs. March. " I
can't get his face out of my sight. He looked so much
worse than death."

" Oh, death doesn't look bad," said March. " It's
life that looks so in its presence. Death is peace and
pardon. I only wish poor old Lindau was as well out
of it as Conrad there."

" Ah, Lindau ! He has done harm enough," said
Mrs. March. " I hope he will be careful after this."

March did not try to defend Lindau against her
theory of the case, which inexorably held him respon
sible for Conrad's death.

" Lindau's going to come out all right, I guess," said

494

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Fulkerson. " He was first-rate when I saw him at the
hospital to-night." He whispered in March's ear, at a
chance he got in mounting the station stairs : " I didn't
like to tell you there at the house, but I guess you'd
better know. They had to take Lindau's arm off near
the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces by the clubbing."

In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for
them, the bereaved family whom the Marches had just
left lingered together, and tried to get strength to part
for the night. They were all spent with the fatigue
that comes from heaven to such misery as theirs, and
they sat in a torpor in which each waited for the other
to move, to speak.

Christine moved, and Mela spoke. Christine rose
and went out of the room without saying a word, and
they heard her going up-stairs. Then Mela said:

" I reckon the rest of us better be goun' too, father.
Here, let's git mother started."

She put her arm round her mother, to lift her from
her chair, but the old man did not stir, and Mela called
Mrs. Mandel from the next room. Between them they
raised her to her feet.

" Ain't there anybody agoin' to set up with it ?"
she asked, in her hoarse pipe. " It appears like folks
hain't got any feelin's in N^ew York. Woon't some o'
the neighbors come and offer to set up, without waitin'
to be asked ?"

" Oh, that's all right, mother. The men '11 attend
to that. Don't you bother any," Mela coaxed, and she
kept her arm round her mother, with tender patience.

" Why, Mely, child ! I can't feel right to have it
left to hirelin's so. But there ain't anybody any more
to see things done as they ought. If Coonrod was on'y
here—"

"Well, mother, you are pretty mixed!" said Mela,

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

with a strong tendency to break into her large guffaw.
But she checked herself and said : " I know just how
you feel, though. It keeps acomun' and agoun' ; and
it's so and it ain't so, all at once ; that's the plague of
it. Well, father! Ain't you goun' to come?"

" I'm goin' to stay, Mela," said the old man, gently,
without moving. " Get your mother to bed, that's a
good girl."

" You goin' to set up with him, Jacob ?" asked the
old woman.

" Yes, 'Liz'beth, I'll set up. You go to bed."

" Well, I will, Jacob. And I believe it '11 do you
good to set up. I wished I could set up with you;
but I don't seem to have the stren'th I did when the
twins died. I must git my sleep, so's to — I don't like
very well to have you broke of your rest, Jacob, but
there don't appear to be anybody else. You wouldn't
have to do it if Coonrod was here. There I go ag'in !
Mercy! mercy!"

" Well, do come along, then, mother," said Mela ;
and she got her out of the room, with Mrs. MandeFs
help, and up the stairs.

From the top the old woman called down, " You tell
Coonrod— She stopped, and he heard her groan out,
" My Lord ! my Lord !"

He sat, one silence in the dining-room, where they
had all lingered together, and in the library beyond the
hireling watcher sat, another silence. The time passed,
but neither moved, and the last noise in the house
ceased, so that they heard each other breathe, and the
vague, remote rumor of the city invaded the inner still
ness. It grew louder toward morning, and then Dry-
foos knew from the watcher's deeper breathing that he
had fallen into a doze.

He crept by him to the drawing-room, where his son

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

was; the place was full of the awful sweetness of the
flowers that Fulkersori had brought, and that lay above
the pulseless breast. The old man turned up a burner
in the chandelier, and stood looking on the majestic
serenity of the dead face.

He could not move when he saw his wife coming
down the stairway in the hall. She was in her long,
white flannel bed gown, and the candle she carried shook
with her nervous tremor. He thought she might be
walking in her sleep, but she said, quite simply, " I
Avoke up, and I couldn't git to sleep ag'in without
comin' to have a look." She stood beside their dead
son with him. " Well, he's beautiful, Jacob. He was
the prettiest baby ! And he was always good, Coonrod
was; I'll say that for him. I don't believe he ever
give me a minute's care in his whole life. I reckon
I liked him about the best of all the children; but I
don't know as T ever done much to show it. But you
was always good to him, Jacob; you always done the
best for him, ever since he was a little feller. I used
to be afraid you'd spoil him sometimes in them days ;
but I guess you're glad now for every time you didn't
cross him. I don't suppose since the twins died you
ever hit him a lick." She stooped and peered closer at
the face. " Why, Jacob, what's that there by his pore
eye ?"

Dryfoos saw it, too, the wound that he had feared
to look for, and that now seemed to redden on his sight.
He broke into a low, wavering cry, like a child's in
despair, like an animal's in terror, like a soul's in the
anguish of remorse.

VII

THE evening after the funeral, while the Marches
sat together talking it over, and making approaches,
through its shadow, to the question of their own future,
which it involved, they were startled by the twitter of
the electric bell at their apartment door. It was really
not so late as the children's having gone to bed made-
it seem; but at nine o'clock it was too late for any
probable visitor except Fulkerson. It might be he, and
March was glad to postpone the impending question to
his curiosity concerning the immediate business Eul-
kerson might have with him. He went himself to the
door, and confronted there a lady deeply veiled in black
and attended by a very decorous serving-woman.

" Are you alone, Mr. March — you and Mrs. March 2"
asked the lady, behind her veil ; and, as he hesitated, she
said : " You don't know me ! Miss Vance " ; and she
threw back her veil, showing her face wan and agitated
in the dark folds. " I am very anxious to see you —
to speak with you both. May I come in ?"

" Why, certainly, Miss Vance," he answered, still
too much stupefied by her presence to realize itv

She promptly entered, and saying, with a glance at
the hall chair by the door, " My maid can sit here 2"
followed him to the room where he had left his wife.

Mrs. March showed herself more capable of coping
with the fact. She welcomed Miss Vance with the
liking they both felt for the girl, and with the syni-

p'athy which her troubled face inspired.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I won't tire you with excuses for coming, Mrs.
March," she said, " for it was the only thing left for
me to do; and I come at my aunt's suggestion." She
added this as if it would help to account for her more
on the conventional plane, and she had the instinctive
good taste to address herself throughout to Mrs. March
as much as possible, though what she had to say was
mainly for March. " I don't know how to begin — I
don't know how to speak of this terrible affair. But
you know what I mean. I feel as if I had lived a
whole lifetime since it — happened. I don't want you
to pity me for it," she said, forestalling a politeness
from Mrs. March. " I'm the last one to be thought of,
and you mustn't mind me if I try to make you. I caine
to find out all of the truth that I can, and when I know
just what that is I shall know what to do. I have read
the inquest ; it's all burned into my brain. But I don't
care for that — for myself: you must let me say such
things without minding me. I know that your hus
band — that Mr. March was there ; I read his testimony ;
and I wished to ask him — to ask him— She stopped
and looked distractedly about. " But what folly ! He
must have said everything he knew — he had to." Her
eyes Avandercd to him from his wife, on whom she had
kept them with instinctive tact.

" I said everything — yes," he replied. " But if you
would like to know —

" Perhaps I had better tell you something first. I
had just parted with him — it couldn't have been more
than half an hour — in front of Brentano's; he must
have gone straight to his death. We were talking, and
I — I said, Why didn't some one go among the strikers
and plead with them to be peaceable, and keep them
from attacking the new men. I knew that he felt as
I did about the strikers ; that he was their friend. Did
33 499

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

you see — do you know anything that makes you think
lie had heen trying to do that?"

" I am sorry/7 March began, " I didn't see him at all
till — till I saw him lying dead."

" My husband was there purely by accident/' Mrs.
March put in. " I had begged and entreated him not
to go near the striking anywhere* And he had just
got out of the car, and saw the policeman strike that
wretched Lindau — he's been such an anxiety to me ever
since we have had anything to do with him here; my
husband knew him when he was a boy in the West.
Mr. March came home from it all perfectly prostrated ;
it made us all sick ! Nothing so horrible ever came into
our lives before. I assure you it was the most shocking
experience."

Miss Vance listened to her with that look of patience
which those who have seen much of the real suffering
of the world — the daily portion of the poor — have for
the nervous woes of comfortable people. March hung
his head ; he knew it would be useless to protest that
his share of the calamity was, by comparison, in-
nnitesimally small.

After she had heard Mrs. March to the end even of
her repetitions, Miss Vance said, as if it were a mere
matter of course that she should have looked the affair
up, " Yes, I have seen Mr. Lindau at the hospital — "

" My husband goes every day to see him," Mrs.
March interrupted, to give a final touch, to the con
ception of March's magnanimity throughout.

" The poor man seems to have been in the wrong at
the time," said Miss Vance.

" I could almost say he had earned the right to be
wrong. He's a man of the most generous instincts, and
a high ideal of justice, of equity — too high to be con
sidered by a policeman with a club in his hand," said

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

March, with a bold defiance of his wife's different opin
ion of Lindau. " It's the policeman's business, I sup
pose, to club the ideal when he finds it inciting a riot."

" Oh, I don't blame Mr. Lindau ; I don't blame the
policeman; he was as much a mere instrument as his
club was. I am only trying to find out how much I
am to blame myself. I had no thought of Mr. Dry-
foos's going there — of his attempting to talk with the
strikers and keep them quiet; I was only thinking, as
women do, of what I should try to do if I were a man.
But perhaps he understood me to ask him to go — per
haps my words sent him to his death."

She had a sort of calm in her courage to know the
worst truth as to her responsibility that forbade any
wish to flatter her out of it. " I'm afraid," said March,
" that is what can never be known now." After a
moment he added : " But why should you wish to
know? If he went there as a peacemaker, he died in
a good cause, in such a way as he would wish to die,
I believe."

" Yes," said the girl ; " I have thought of that. But
death is awful ; we must not think patiently, forgiving
ly of sending any one to their death in the best cause."

" I fancy life was an awful thing to Conrad Dry-
foos," March replied. " He was thwarted and disap
pointed, without even pleasing the ambition that thwart
ed and disappointed him. That poor old man, his
father, warped him from his simple, lifelong wish to
be a minister, and was trying to make a business man
of him. If it will be any consolation to you to know it,
Miss Vance, I can assure you that he was very un
happy, and I don't see how he could ever have been
happy here."

" It won't," said the girl, steadily. " If people are
born into this world, it's because they were meant to

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

live in it. It isn't a question of being happy here ; no
one is happy, in that old, selfish way, or can be; but
he could have been of great use."

" Perhaps he was of use in dying. Who knows ? He
may have been trying to silence Lindau."

" Oh, Lindau wasn't worth it !" cried Mrs. March.

Miss Vance looked at her as if she did not quite
understand. Then she turned to March. " He might
have been unhappy, as we all are ; but I know that his
life here would have had a higher happiness than we
wish for or aim for." The tears began to run silently
down her cheeks.

" He looked strangely happy that day when he left
me. He had hurt himself somehow, and his face was
bleeding from a scratch ; he kept his handkerchief up ;
he was pale, but such a light came into his face when
he shook hands — ah, I know he went to try and do what
I said!" They were all silent, while she dried her
eyes and then put her handkerchief back into the pocket
from which she had suddenly pulled it, with a series of
vivid, young-ladyish gestures, which struck March by
their incongruity with the occasion of their talk, and
yet by their harmony with the rest of her elegance. " I
am sorry, Miss Vance," he began, " that I can't really
tell you anything more — "

" You are very kind," she said, controlling herself
and rising quickly. " I thank you — thank you both
very much." She turned to Mrs. March and shook
hands with her and then with him. " I might have
known — I did know that there wasn't anything more
for you to tell. But at least I've found out from you
that there was nothing, and now I can begin to bear
what I must. How are those poor creatures — his
mother and father, his sisters ? Some day, I hope, I
shall be ashamed to have postponed them to the thought

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

of myself; but I can't pretend to be yet. I could not
come to the funeral ; I wanted to."

She addressed her question to Airs. March, who an
swered : " I can understand. But they were pleased
with the flowers you sent; people are, at such times,
and they haven't many friends."

" Would you go to see them ?" asked the girl.
" Would you tell them what I've told you ?"

Mrs. March looked at her husband.

" I don't see what good it would do. They wouldn't
understand. But if it would relieve you—

" I'll wait till it isn't a question of self-relief," said
the girl. " Good-bye !"

She left them to long debate of the event. At the
end Mrs. March said, " She is a strange being ; such
a mixture of the society girl and the saint."

Her husband answered : " She's the potentiality of
several kinds of fanatic. She's very unhappy, and I
don't see how she's to be happier about that poor fellow.
I shouldn't be surprised if she did inspire him to at
tempt something of that kind."

" Well, you got out of it very well, Basil. I ad
mired the way you managed. I was afraid you'd say
something awkward."

" Oh, with a plain line of truth before me, as the
only possible thing, I can get on pretty well. When
it comes to anything decorative, I'd rather leave it to
you, Isabel."

She seemed insensible of his jest. " Of course, he
was in love with her. That was the light that came
into his face when he was going to do what he thought
she wanted him to do."

" And she — do you think that she was. — "

" What an idea ! It would have been perfectly

grotesque !"

503

VIII

THEIR affliction brought the Dryfooses into humarier
relations with the Marches, who had hitherto regarded
them as a necessary evil, as the odious means of their
own prosperity. Mrs. March found that the women of
the family seemed glad of her coming, and in the sense
of her usefulness to them all she began to feel a kind
ness even for Christine. But she could not help see
ing that between the girl and her father there was an
unsettled account, somehow, and that it was Christine
and not the old man who was holding out. She thought
that their sorrow had tended to refine the others. Mela
was much more subdued, and, except when she aban
doned herself to a childish interest in her mourning,
she did nothing to shock Mrs. March's taste or to seem
unworthy of her grief. She was very good to her
mother, whom the blow had left unchanged, and to
her father, whom it had apparently fallen upon witli
crushing weight. Once, after visiting their house, Mrs.
March described to March a little scene between Dry-
foos and Mela, when he came home from Wall Street,
and the girl met him at the door with a kind of country
simpleness, and took his hat and stick, and brought him
into the room where Mrs. March sat, looking tired and
broken.

She found this look of Dryfoos's pathetic, and dwelt
on the sort of stupefaction there was in it ; he must have
loved his son more than they ever realized. " Yes,"

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

said March, " I suspect he did. He's never heen about
the place since that day ; he was always dropping in
before, on his way up-town. lie seems to go down to
Wall Street every day, just as before, but I suppose
that's mechanical ; he wouldn't know what else to do ;
I dare say it's best for him. The sanguine Fulkerson
is getting a little anxious about the future of Ercry
Other Week. Now Conrad's gone, he isn't sure the
old man will want to keep on with it, or whether he'll
have to look up another Angel. lie wants to get mar
ried, I imagine, and he can't venture till this point is
settled."

" It's a very material point to us, too, Basil/' said
Mrs. March.

" Well, of course. I hadn't overlooked that, you
may be sure. One of the things that Fulkerson and
I have discussed is a scheme for buying the maga
zine. Its success is pretty well assured now, and I
shouldn't be afraid to put money into it — if I had
the money."

" I couldn't let you sell the house in Boston, Basil !"

" And I don't want to. I wish we could go back
and live in it and get the rent, too! It would be quite
a support. But I suppose if Dryfoos won't keep on,
it must come to another Angel. I hope it won't be a
literary one, with a fancy for running my department."

" Oh, I guess whoever takes the magazine will be
glad enough to keep you !"

" Do you think so ? Well, perhaps. But I don't
believe Fulkerson would let me stand long between
him and an Angel of the right description."

" Well, then, I believe he would. And you've never
seen anything, Basil, to make you really think that Mr.
Fulkerson didn't appreciate you to the utmost."

" I think I earao pretty near an undervaluation in

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

that Lindau trouble. I shall always wonder what put
a backbone into Fulkerson just at that crisis. Fulker-
son doesn't strike me as the stuff of a moral hero."

" At any rate, he was one," said Mrs. March, " and
that's quite enough for me."

March did not answer. " What a noble thing life
is, anyway ! Here I am, well on the way to fifty, after
twenty-five years of hard work, looking forward to the
potential poor-house as confidently as I did in youth.
We might have saved a little more than we have saved ;
but the little more wouldn't avail if I were turned out
of my place now ; and we should have lived sordidly to
no purpose. Some one always has you by the throat,
unless you have some one else in your grip. I wonder
if that's the attitude the Almighty intended His respect
able creatures to take toward one another! I wonder
if He meant our civilization, the battle we fight in, the
game we trick in! I wonder if He considers it final,
and if the kingdom of heaven on earth, which we pray
for—"

" Have you seen Lindau to-day ?" Mrs. March askod.

" You inferred it from the quality of my piety ?"
March laughed, and then suddenly sobered. " Yes, I
paw him. It's going rather hard with him, I'm afraid.
The amputation doesn't heal very well; the shock was
very great, and he's old. It '11 take time. There's so
much pain that they have to keep him under opiates,
and I don't think he fully knew me. At any rate, I
didn't get my piety from him to-day."

" It's horrible ! Horrible !" said Mrs. March. " I
can't get over it! After losing his hand in the war,
to lose his whole arm now in this way! It does seem
too cruel ! Of course he oughtn't to have been there ;
we can say that. But you oughtn't to have been there,
either, Basil."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Well, I wasn't exactly advising the police to go
and club the railroad presidents."

" Neither was poor Conrad Dryfoos."

" I don't deny it. All that was distinctly the chance
of life and death. That belonged to God ; and no doubt
it was law, though it seems chance. But what I object
to is this economic chance-world in which we live, and
which we men seem to have created. It ought to be
law as inflexible in human affairs as the order of day
and night in the physical world that if a man will
work he shall both rest and oat, and shall not be har
assed with any question as to how his repose and his
provision shall come. Nothing less ideal than this satis
fies the reason. But in our state of things no one js
secure of this. No one is sure of finding wrork ; no one
is sure of not losing it. I may have my work taken
away from me at any moment by the caprice, the mood,
the indigestion of a man who has not the qualification
for knowing whether I do it well or ill. , At my time
of life — at every time of life — a man ought to feel that
if he will keep on doing his duty he shall not suffer
in himself or in those who are dear to him, except I
through natural causes. But no man can feel this a&J
things are now ; and so we go on, pushing and pulling,
climbing and crawling, thrusting aside and trampling
underfoot; lying, cheating, stealing; and when we get
to the end, covered with blood and dirt and sin and
shame, and look back over the way we've come to a
palace of our own, or the poor-house, which is about
the only possession we can claim in common wTith our
brother-men, I don't think the retrospect can be pleas-
ing."

" I know, I know !" said his wife. " I think of those
things, too, Basil. Life isn't what it seems when you

look forward to it. But I think people would suffer

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

less, and wouldn't have to work so hard, and could make
all reasonable provision for the future, if they were not
so greedy and so foolish."

" Oh, without doubt ! We can't put it all on the
conditions; we must put some of the blame on char
acter. But conditions make character; and people are
greedy and foolish, and wish to have and to shine, be
cause having and shining are held up to them by civil
ization as the chief good of life. We all know they are
not the chief good, perhaps not good at all ; but if some
one ventures to say so, all the rest of us call him a
fraud and a crank, and go moiling and toiling on to
the palace or the poor-house. We can't help it. If one
were less greedy or less foolish, some one else would
have and would shine at his expense. We don't moil
and toil to ourselves alone ; the palace or the poor-house
is not merely for ourselves, but for our children, whom
we've brought up in the superstition that having and
shining is the chief good. We dare not teach them
otherwise, for fear they may falter in the fight when
it comes their turn, and the children of others will
crowd them out of the palace into the poor-house. If
we felt sure 'that honest work shared by all would bring
them honest food shared by all, some heroic few of us,
who did not wish our children to rise above their fel
lows — though1 we could not bear to have them fall be-
low; — might trust them with the truth. But we have
no such assurance, and so we go on trembling before
Dryfooses and living in gimcrackeries."

" Basil, Basil ! I was always willing to live more
simply than you. You know I was !"

" I know you always said so, my dear. But how
many bell-ratchets and speaking-tubes would you be
willing to have at the street door below ? I remember
that when we were looking for a flat you rejected every

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

building that had a bell-ratchet or a speaking-tube, and
would have nothing to do with any that had more than
an electric button ; you wanted a hall-boy, with electric
buttons all over him. I don't blame you. I find such
things quite as necessary as you do."

" And do you mean to say, Basil," she asked, aban
doning this unprofitable branch of the inquiry, " that
you are really uneasy about your place? that you are
afraid Mr. Dryfoos may give up being an Angel, and
Mr. Fulkerson may play you false ?"

" Play me false ? Oh, it wouldn't be playing me
false. It would be merely looking out for himself, if
the new Angel had editorial tastes and wanted my
place. It's what any one would do."

" You wouldn't do it, Basil !"

'' Wouldn't I ? Well, if any one offered me more
salary than Every Other Week pays — say, twice as
much — what do you think my duty to my suffering
family would be? It's give and take in the business
world, Isabel ; especially take. But as to being uneasy,
I'm not, in the least. I've the spirit of a lion, when
it comes to such a chance as that. When I see how
readily the sensibilities of the passing stranger can be
worked in New York, I think of taking up the role
of that desperate man on Third Avenue who went
along looking for garbage in the gutter to eat. I think
I could pick up at least twenty or thirty cents a day by
that little game, and maintain my family in the af
fluence it's been accustomed to."

ff Basil !" cried his wife. " You don't mean to say
that man was an impostor ! And I've gone about, ever
since, feeling that one such case in a million, the bare
possibility of it, was enough to justify all that Lindau
said about the rich and the poor !"

March laughed teasingly. " Oh, I don't say he was
"509

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

an impostor. Perhaps he really was hungry ; but, if he
wasn't, what do you think of a civilization that makes
the opportunity of such a fraud 3 that gives us all such
a bad conscience for the need which is that we weaken
to the need that isn't ? Suppose that poor fellow wasn't
personally founded on fact: nevertheless, he represent
ed the truth ; he was the ideal of the suffering which
would be less effective if realistically treated. That
man is a great comfort to me. He probably rioted for
days on that quarter I gave him ; made a dinner very
likely, or a champagne supper; and if Every Other
Week wants to get rid of me, I intend to work that
racket. You can hang round the corner with Bella,
and Tom can come up to me in tears, at stated inter
vals, and ask me if I've found anything yet. To be
sure, we might be arrested and sent up somewhere.
But even in that extreme case we should be provided
for. Oh no, I'm not afraid of losing my place! I've
merely a sort of psychological curiosity to know how
men like Dryfoos and Fulkerson will work out the
problem before them."

IX

IT was a curiosity which Fulkerson himself shared,
at least concerning Dryfoos. " I don't know what the
old man's going to do," he said to March the day after
the Marches had talked their future over. " Said any
thing to you yet ?"

" No, not a word."

" You're anxious, I suppose, same as I am. Fact
is," said Fulkerson, blushing a little, " I can't ask to
have a day named till I know where I am in connection
with the old man. I can't tell whether I've got to look
out for something else or somebody else. Of course,
it's full soon yet."

" Yes," March said, " much sooner than it seems to
us. We're so anxious about the future that we don't
remember how very recent the past is."

" That's something so. The old man's hardly had
time yet to pull himself together. Well, I'm glad you
feel that way about it, March. I guess it's more of a
blow to him than we realize. He was a good deal bound
up in Coonrod, though he didn't always use him very
well. Well, I reckon it's apt to happen so oftentimes;
curious how cruel love can be. Heigh ? We're an
awful mixture, March !"

" Yes, that's the marvel and the curse, as Browning
says."

u Why, that poor boy himself," pursued Fulkerson,

" had streaks of the mule in him that could give odds

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

to Beaton, and he must have tried the old man by the
way he would give in to his will and hold out against
his judgment. I don't believe he ever budged a hair's-
breadth from his original position about wanting to be
a preacher and not wanting to be a business man. Well,
of course! I don't think business is all in all; but it
must have made the old man mad to find that without
saying anything, or doing anything to show it, and
after seeming to come over to his ground, and really
coming, practically, Coonrod was just exactly where he
first planted himself, every time."

" Yes, people that have convictions are difficult.
Fortunately, they're rare."

" Do you think so ? It seems to me that everybody's
got convictions. Beaton himself, who hasn't a principle
to throw at a dog, has got convictions the size of a barn.
They ain't always the same ones, I know, but they're
always to the same effect, as far as Beaton's being dum
ber One is concerned. The old man's got convictions
— or did have, unless this thing lately has shaken him
all up — and he believes that money will do everything.
Colonel Woodburn's got convictions that he wouldn't
part with for untold millions. Why, March, you got
convictions yourself !"

" Have I ?" said March. " I don't know what they
are."

" Well, neither do I ; but I know you were ready
to kick the trough over for them when the old man
wanted us to bounce Lindau that time."

" Oh yes," said March ; he remembered the fact ; but
he was still uncertain just what the convictions were
that he had been so stanch for.

" I suppose we could have got along without you,"
Fulkerson mused aloud. " It's astonishing how you
always can get along in this world without the man

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A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

that is simply indispensable. Makes a fellow realize
that he could take a day off now and then without do-
ranging the solar system a great deal. Now here's
Coonrod — or, rather, he isn't. But that boy managed
his part of the schooner so well that I used to tremble
when I thought of his getting the better of the old man
and going into a convent or something of that kind ;
and now here he is, snuffed out in half a second, and
I don't believe but what we shall be sailing along just
as chipper as usual inside of thirty days. I reckon it
will bring the old man to the point when I come to talk
with him about who's to be put in Coonrod's place. I
don't like very well to start the subject with him; but
it's got to be done some time."

" Yes," March admitted. " It's terrible to think how
unnecessary even the best and wisest of us is to the pur
poses of Providence. When I looked at that poor young
fellow's face sometimes — so gentle and true and pure
—I used to think the world was appreciably richer for
his being in it. But are we appreciably poorer for his
being out of it now ?"

" No, I don't reckon we are," said.Fulkerson. " And
what a lot of the raw material of all kinds the Almighty
must have, to waste us the way He seems to do. Think
of throwing away a precious creature like Coonrod Dry-
foos on one chance in a thousand of getting that old
fool of a Lindau out of the way of being clubbed ! For
I suppose that was what Coonrod was up to. Say!
Have you been round to see Lindau to-day ?"

Something in the tone or the manner of Fulkerson
startled March. " No ! I haven't seen him since yes
terday."

" Well, I don't know," said Fulkerson. " I guess
I saw him a little while after you did, and that young
doctor there seemed to feel kind of worried about him.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Or not worried, exactly; they can't afford to let such
things worry them, I suppose; but — "

"He's worse?" asked March.

" Oh, he didn't say so. But I just wondered if you'd
seen him to-day."

" I think I'll go now," said March, with a pang at
heart. He had gone every day to see Lindau, but this
day he had thought he would not go, and that was why
his heart smote him. He knew that if he were in
Lindau's place Lindau would never have left his side
if he could have helped it. March tried to believe that
the case was the same, as it stood now; it seemed to
him that he was always going to or from the hospital ;
he said to himself that it must do Lindau harm to be
visited so much. But he knew that this was not true
when he was met at the door of the ward where Lindau
lay by the young doctor, who had come to feel a per
sonal interest in March's interest in Lindau.

He smiled without gayety, and said, " He's just
going."

"What! Discharged?"

" Oh no. He has been failing very fast since you
saw him yesterday, and now — They had been walk
ing softly and talking softly down the aisle between the
long rows of beds. " Would you care to see him ?"

The doctor made a slight gesture toward the white
canvas screen which in such places forms the death-
chamber of the poor and friendless. " Come round this
way — he won't know you ! I've got rather fond of the
poor old fello\v. He wouldn't have a clergyman — sort
of agnostic, isn't he ? A good many of these Germans
are — but the young lady who's been coming to see
him—"

They both stopped. Lindau's grand, patriarchal

head, foreshortened to their view, lay white upon the

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

pillow, and his broad, white beard flowed upon the
sheet, which heaved with those long last breaths. Be
side his bed Margaret Vance was kneeling; her veil
was thrown back, and her face was lifted; she held
clasped between her hands the hand of the dying man ;
she moved her lips inaudibly.

31

IN spite of the experience of the whole race from
time immemorial, when death comes to any one we know
we helplessly regard it as an incident of life, which
will presently go on as before. Perhaps this is an in
stinctive perception of the truth that it does go on some
where; but we have a sense of death as absolutely the
end even for earth only if it relates to some one re
mote or indifferent to us. March tried to project Lin-
dau to the necessary distance from himself in order
to realize the fact in his case, but he could not, though
the man with whom his youth had been associated in a
poetic friendship had not actually re-entered the region
of his affection to the same degree, or in any like de
gree. The changed conditions forbade that. He had
a soreness of heart concerning him; but he could not
make sure whether this soreness was grief for his death,
or remorse for his own uncandor with him about Dry-
foos, or a foreboding of that accounting with his con
science which he knew his wife would now exact of him
down to the last minutest particular of their joint and
several behavior toward Lindau ever since they had
met him in New York.

He felt something knock against his shoulder, and
he looked up to have his hat struck from his head by
a horse's nose. He saw the horse put his foot 011 the
hat, and he reflected, " Now it will always look like :MI
accordion," and he heard the horse's driver address

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

him some sarcasms before he could fully awaken to the
situation, lie1 was standing bareheaded in the middle
of Fifth Avenue and Mocking the tide of carriages
flowing in either direction. Among the faces put ont
of the carriage windows he saw that of Dryfoos looking
from a coupe. The old man knew him, arid said,
"Jump in here, Mr. March''; and March, who had
mechanically picked up his hat, and was thinking,
" Now I shall have to tell Isabel about this at once,
and she will never trust me on the street again with
out her/7 mechanically obeyed. Her confidence in him
had been undermined by his being so near Conrad when
he was shot; and it went through his mind that he
would get Dryfoos to drive him to a hatter's, where
he could buy a new hat, and not be obliged to confess
his narrow escape to his wife till the incident was some
days old and she could bear it better. It quite drove
Lindau's death out of his mind for the moment; and
when Dryfoos said if he was going home he would
drive up to the first cross-street and turn back with
him, March said he would be glad if he would take him
to a hat-store. The old man put his head out again and
told the driver to take them to the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
k There's a hat-store around there somewhere, seems to
me," he said; and they talked of March's accident as
well as they could in the rattle and clatter of the street
till they reached the place. March got his hat, passing
a joke with the hatter about the impossibility of press
ing his old hat over again, and came out to thank Dry
foos and take leave of him.

" If you ain't in any great hurry," the old man said,
" I wish you'd get in here a minute. I'd like to have a
little talk with yon."

"Oh, certainly," said March, and he thought: "It's
coming now about what he intends to do with Every

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A HAZAliD OF NEW FORTUNES

Other Week. Well, i might as well have all the mis
ery at once and have it over."

Dryfoos called up to his driver, who bent his head
down sidewise to listen : " Go over there on Madison
Avenue, onto that asphalt, and keep drivin' up and
down till I stop you. I can't hear myself think on
these pavements/' he said to March. But after they
got upon the asphalt, and began smoothly rolling over
it, he seemed in no haste to begin. At last he said,
" I wanted to talk with you about that — that Dutchman
that was at my dinner — Lindau," and March's heart
gave a jump with wonder whether he could already
have heard of Liudau's death; but in an instant he
perceived that this was impossible. " I been talkin'
with Fulkerson about him, and he says they had to take
the balance of his arm off."

March nodded ; it seemed to him he could not speak.
He could not make out from the close face of the old
man anything of his motive. It was set, but set as a
piece of broken mechanism is when it has lost the power
to relax itself. There was no other history in it of
what the man had passed through in his son's death.

" I don't know," Dryfoos resumed, looking aside at
the cloth window-strap, which he kept fingering, " as
you quite understood what made me the maddest. I
didn't tell him I could talk Dutch, because I can't keep
it up with a regular German ; but my father was Penn-
sylvany Dutch, and I could understand what he was
saying to you about me. I know I had no business to
understood it, after I let him think I couldn't; but I
did, and I didn't like very well to have a man callin'
me a traitor and a tyrant at my own table. Well, I
look at it differently now, and I reckon I had better
have tried to put up with it ; and I would, if I could
have known — " He stopped with a quivering lip, and

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

then went on : " Then, again, I didn't like his talkin'
that paternalism of his. I always heard it was the
worst kind of thing for the country ; I was brought up
to think the best government was the one that governs
the least; and I didn't want to hear that kind of talk
from a man that was livin' on my money. I couldn't
bear it from him. Or I thought I couldn't before —
before — ' He stopped again, and gulped. " I reckon
now there ain't anything I couldn't bear."

March was moved by the blunt words and the mute
stare forward with which they ended. " Mr. Dryfoos,
I didn't know that you understood Lindau's German,
or I shouldn't have allowed him — he wouldn't have al
lowed himself — to go on. He wouldn't have knowingly
abused his position of guest to censure you, no matter
how much he condemned you."

" I don't care for it now," said Dryfoos. " It's all
past and gone, as far as I'm concerned ; but I wanted
you to see that I wasn't tryin' to punish him for his
opinions, as you said."

" No ; I see now," March assented, though he thought
his position still justified. " I wish —

" I don't know as I understand much about his opin
ions, anyway ; but I ain't ready to say I want the men
dependent on. me to manage my business for me. I
always tried to do the square thing by my hands; and
in that particular case out there I took on all the old
hands just as fast as they left their Union. As for the
game I came on them, it was dog eat dog, anyway."

March could have laughed to think how far this old
man was from even conceiving of Lindau's point of
view, and how he was saying the worst of himself that
Lindau could have said of him. No one could have
characterized the kind of thing he had done more se
verely than he when he called it dog eat dog.

519

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

"There's a great deal to IK- said on both sides/'
March began, hoping to lead up through this generality
to the fact of Landau's death ; but the old man wont on :

" Well, all I wanted him to know is that I wasn't
trying to punish him for what he said about things
in general. You naturally got that idea, I reckon;
but I always went in for lettin' people say what they
please and think what they please; it's the only way
in a free country."

" I'm afraid, Mr. Dryfoos, that it would make little
difference to Lindau now—

" I don't suppose he bears malice for it," said Dry
foos, " but what I want to do is to have him told so.
He could understand just why I didn't want to be called
hard names, and yet I didn't object to his thinkin' what
ever he pleased. I'd like him to know —

" ~No one can speak to him, no one can tell him,"
March began again, but again Dryfoos prevented him
from going on.

"I understand it's a delicate thing; and I'm not
askin' you to do it. What I would really like to do
— if you think he could be prepared for it, some way,
and could stand it — would be to go to him myself, and
tell him just what the trouble was. I'm in hopes, if
I done that, he could see how I felt about it."

A picture of Dryfoos going to the dead Lindau with
his vain regrets presented itself to March, and he tried
once more to make the old man understand. " Mr.
Dryfoos," he said, " Lindau is past all that forever,"
and he felt the ghastly comedy of it when Dryfoos
continued, without heeding him:

" I got a particular reason why I want him to be
lieve it wasn't his ideas I objected to — them ideas of
his about the government carry in' everything on and
givin' work. I don't understand 'em exactly, but I

520

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

found a writ in' — among — my son's — things " (he seem
ed to force the words through his teeth), " and I reckon
he — thought — thnt way. Kind of a diary — where he
—put down — his thoughts. My son and me — we dif
fered about a good — many things." His chin shook,
and from time to time he stopped. " I wasn't very
good to him, I reckon; I crossed him where I guess I
got no business to cross him ; but I thought everything
of — Coonrod. He was the best boy, from a baby, that
ever was; just so patient and mild, and done whatever
he was told. I ought to 'a7 let him been a preacher!
Oh, my son ! my son !" The sobs could not be kept
back any longer; they shook the old man with a vio
lence that made March afraid for him ; but he con
trolled himself at last with a series of hoarse sounds
like barks. " Well, it's all past and gone ! But as I
understand you from what you saw, when — Coonrod —
was — killed, he was tryin' to save that old man from
trouble ?"

" Yes, yes ! It seemed so to me."

" That '11 do, then ! I want you to have him come
back and write for the book when he gets well. I want
you to find out and let me know if there's anything I
can do for him. I'll feel as if I done it — for my —
son. I'll take him into my own house, and do for him
there, if you say so. when he gets so he can be moved.
I'll wait on him myself. It's what Coonrod 'd do, if
he was here. I don't feel any hardness to him because
it was him that got Coonrod killed, as you might say,
in one sense of the term ; but I've tried to think it out,
and I feel like I was all the more beholden to him be
cause my son died tryin' to save him. Whatever I do,
I'll be doin' it for Coonrod, and that's enough for me."
He seemed to have finished, and he turned to March
as if to hear what he had to say.

521

A II AX AIM) OF'NKW FORTUNES

March hesitated. " I'm afraid, Mr. Dryfoos —
Didn't Fulkerson tell you that Lindau was very sick ?"
" Yes, of course. But he's all right, he said."
Now it had to come, though the fact had been lat
terly playing fast and loose with March's consciousness.
Something almost made him smile; the willingness he
had once felt to give this old man pain ; then he con
soled himself by thinking that at least he was not
obliged to meet Dryfoos's wish to make atonement with
the fact that Lindau had renounced him, and would on
no terms work for such a man as he, or suffer any kind
ness from him. In this light Lindau seemed the harder
of the two, and March had the momentary force to say :
" Mr. Dryfoos — it can't be. Lindau — I have just come
from him — is dead."

XT

" How did he take it ? How could he bear it ? Oh,
Basil ! I wonder you could have the heart to say it to
him. It was cruel !"

" Yes, cruel enough, my dear," March owned to his
wife, when they talked the matter over on his return
home. He could not wait till the children were out of
the way, and afterward neither he nor his wife was
sorry that he had spoken of it before them. The girl
cried plentifully for her old friend who was dead, and
said she hated Mr. Dryfoos, and then was sorry for
him, too; and the boy listened to all, and spoke with a
serious sense that pleased his father. " But as to how
he took it," March went on to answer his wife's ques
tion about Dryfoos — " how do any of us take a thing
that hurts? Some of us cry out, and some of us —
don't. Dryfoos drew a kind of long, quivering breath,
as a child does when it grieves — there's something curi
ously simple and primitive about him — and didn't say
anything. After a while he asked me how he could see
the people at the hospital about the remains; I gave-
him my card to the young doctor there that had charge
of Lindau. I suppose he was still carrying forward his
plan of reparation in his mind — to the dead for the
dead. But how useless! If he could have taken the
living Lindau home with him, and cared for him all
his days, what would it have profited the gentle creature
whose life his worldly ambition vexed and thwarted

523

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

here 'I lie might as well offer a sacrifice at Conrad's
grave. Children/' said March, turning to them, " death
is an exile that no remorse and no love can reach. Re
member that, and be good to every one here on earth,
for your longing to retrieve any harshness or unkind-
ness to the dead will be the very ecstasy of anguish to
you. I wonder/' he mused, " if one of the reasons why
we're shut up to our ignorance of what is to be here
after isn't because if we were sure of another world
we might be still more brutal to one another here, in
the hope of making reparation somewhere else. Per
haps, if we ever come to obey the law of love on earth,
the mystery of death will be taken away."

" Well " — the ancestral Puritanism spoke in Mrs.
March — " these two old men have been terribly pun
ished. They have both been violent and wilful, and
they have both been punished. No one need ever
tell me there is not a moral government of the uni
verse !"'

March always disliked to hear her talk in this way,
which did both her head and heart injustice. " And
Conrad," he said, " what was lie punished for ?"

" He ?" she answered, in an exaltation — " he suffered
for the sins of others."

" Ah, well, if you put it in that way, yes. That
goes on continually. That's another mystery."

He fell to brooding on it, and presently he heard his
son saying, " I suppose, papa, that Mr. Lindau died in
a bad cause ?"

March was startled. He had always been so sorry
for Lindau, and admired his courage and generosity
so much, that he had never fairly considered this ques
tion. " Why, yes," he answered ; " he died in the cause
of disorder ; he wyas trying to obstruct the law. No
doubt there was a wrong there, an inconsistency and an

524

A 1TAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES

injustice flint ho felt keenly; br.t il could not be reached
in bis way without greater wrong."

" Yes; that's what I thought," snid the boy. " And
what's the use of our ever fighting about anything in
America ? I always thought we could vote anything we
wanted."

" We can, if we're honest, and don't buy and sell
one another's votes," said his father. " And men like
Lindau, who renounce the American means as hopeless,
and let their love of justice hurry them into sympathy
with violence — yes, they are wrong; and poor Lindau
did die in a bad cause, as you say, Tom."

" I think Conrad had no business there, or you,
either, Basil," said his wife.

" Oh, I don't defend myself," said March. " I was
there in the cause of literary curiosity and of conjugal
disobedience. But Conrad — yes, he had some business
there: it was his business to suffer there for the sins of
others. Isabel, we can't throw aside that old doctrine
of the Atonement yet. The life of Christ, it wasn't
only in healing the sick and going about to do good;
it was suffering for the sins of others. That's as great
a mystery as the mystery of death. Why should there
be such a principle in the world? But it's been felt,
and more or less dumbly, blindly recognized ever since
Calvary. If we love mankind, pity them, we even
wish to suffer for them. That's what has created the
religious orders in all times — the brotherhoods and sis
terhoods that belong to our day as much as to the medi
eval past. That's what is driving a girl like Margaret
\7ance, who has everything that the world can offer her
young beauty, on to the work of a Sister of Charity
among the poor and the dying."

" Yes, yes!" cried Mrs. March. " TTow — how did
she look there, Basil ?" She had her feminine mis-

525

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

giviugs; she was not sure but the girl was something
of a poseuse, and enjoyed the picturesqueness, as well
as the pain ; and she wished to be convinced that it
was not so.

ki Well," she said, when March had told again the
little there was to tell, " I suppose it must be a great
trial to a woman like Mrs. Horn to have her niece
going that way."

" The way of Christ ?" asked March, with a smile.

" Oh, Christ came into the world to teach us how
to live rightly in it, too. If we were all to spend our
time in hospitals, it would be rather dismal for the
homes. But perhaps you don't think the homes are
worth minding?" she suggested, with a certain note in
her voice that he knew.

He got up and kissed her. " I think the gim-
crackeries are." He took the hat he had set down
on the parlor table on corning in, and started to put
it in the hall, and that made her notice it.

" You've been getting a new hat !"

" Yes," he hesitated ; " the old one had got — was de
cidedly shabby."

" Well, that's right. I don't like you to wear them
too long. Did you leave the old one to be pressed ?"

" Well, the hatter seemed to think it was hardly
worth pressing," said March. He decided that for the
present his wife's nerves had quite all they could bear.

XII

IT was in a manner grotesque, but to March it WHS
all the more natural for that reason, that Dryfoos
should have Lindau's funeral from his house. He
knew the old man to be darkly groping, through the
payment of these vain honors to the dead, for some
atonement to his son. and he imagined him finding in
them such comfort as comes from doing all one can,
even when all is useless.

No one knew what Lindau's religion was, and in
default they had had the Anglican burial service read
over him; it seems so often the refuge of the homeless
dead. Mrs. Dryfoos came down for the ceremony.
She understood that it was for Coonrod's sake that his
father wished the funeral to be there ; and she confided
to Mrs. March that she believed Coonrod would have
been pleased. " Coonrod was a member of the 'Pisco-
pal Church; and fawther's doin' the whole thing for
Coonrod as much as for anybody. He thought the
world of Coonrod, fawther did. Mela, she kind of
thought it would look queer to have two funerals from
the same house, hand-runnin', as you might call it, and
one of 'em no relation, either; but when she saw how
fawther was bent on it, she give in. Seems as if she was
try in' to make up to fawther for Coonrod as much as
she could. Mela always was a good child, but nobody
can ever come up to Coonrod."

March felt all the grotesqueness, the hopeless ab-

527

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

surdity of Dryfoos's endeavor at atonement in these
vain obsequies to the man for whom he believed his
son to have died ; but the effort had its magnanimity,
its pathos, and there was a poetry that appealed to him
in the reconciliation through death of men, of ideas, of
conditions, that could only have gone warring on in
life. He thought, as the priest went on with the sol
emn liturgy, how all the world must come together in
that peace which, struggle and strive as we may, shall
claim us at last. He looked at Dryfoos, and wondered
whether he would consider these rites a sufficient tribute,
or whether there was enough in him to make him realize
their futility, except as a mere sign of his wish to re
trieve the past. He thought how we never can atone
for the wrong we do; the heart we have grieved and
wounded cannot kindle with pity for us when once it
is stilled; and yet we can put our evil from us with
penitence; and somehow, somewhere, the order of lov
ing kindness, which our passion or our wilfulness has
disturbed, will be restored.

Dryfoos, through Fulkerson, had asked all the more
intimate contributors of Every Oilier Week to come.
Beaton was absent, but Fulkerson had brought Miss
Woodburn, with her father, and Mrs. Leighton and
Alma, to fill up, as he said. Mela was much present,
and was official with the arrangement of the flowers
and the welcome of the guests. She imparted this im
personality to her reception of Kendricks, whom Ful
kerson met in the outer hall with his party, and whom
he presented in whisper to them all. Kendricks smiled
under his breath, as it were, and was then mutely and
seriously polite to the Leightons. Alma brought a lit
tle bunch of flowers, which were lost in those which
Dryfoos had ordered to be unsparingly provided.

It was a kind of satisfaction to Mela to have Miss

528

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Vance conic, and reassuring as to how it would look
to have the funeral there; Miss Vance would certainly
not have come unless it had been all right; she had
come, and had sent some Easter lilies.

" Ain't Christine coming down ?" Fulkerson asked
Mela.

" No, she ain't a bit well, and she ain't been, ever
since Coonrod died. I don't know what's got over her,"
said Mela. She added, "Well, I should V thought
Mr. Beaton would V made out to 'a' come !"

" Beaton's peculiar," said Fulkerson. " If he thinks
you want him he takes a pleasure in not letting you
have him."

" Well, goodness knows, I don't want him," said the
girl.

Christine kept her room, arid for the most part kept
her bed; but there seemed nothing definitely the mat
ter with her, and she would not let them call a doctor.
Her mother said she reckoned she was beginning to
feel the spring weather, that always perfectly pulled
a body down in T^ow York ; and Mela said if being as
cross as two sticks was any sign of spring-fever, Chris
tine had it bad. She was faithfully kind to her, and
submitted to all her humors, but she recompensed her
self by the freest criticism of Christine when not in
actual attendance on her. Christine would not suffer
Mrs. Mandel to approach her, and she had with her
father a sullen submission which was not resignation.
For her, apparently, Conrad had not died, or had died
in vain.

" Pshaw !" said Mela, one morning when she came
to breakfast, " I reckon if we was to send up an old
card of Mr. Beaton's she'd rattle down- stairs fast
enough. Tf she's sick, she's love-sick. It makes me
sick to sec her."

529

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mela was talking to Mrs. Mandel, but her father
looked up from his plate and listened. Mela went on:
" / don't know what's made the fellow quit comun'.
But he was an aggravatun' thing, and no more depend
able than water. It's just like Mr. Fulkerson said, if
he thinks you want him he'll take a pleasure in not
lettun' you have him. I reckon that's what's the matter
with Christine. I believe in my heart the girl '11 die
if she don't git him."

Mela went on to eat her breakfast with her own
good appetite. She now always came down to keep her
father company, as she said, and she did her best to
cheer and comfort him. At least she kept the talk
going, and she had it nearly all to herself, for Mrs.
Mandel was now merely staying on provisionally, and,
in the absence of any regrets or excuses from Christine,
was looking ruefully forward to the moment when she
must leave even this ungentle home for the chances of
the ruder world outside.

The old man said nothing at table, but, when Mela
went up to see if she could do anything for Christine,
he asked Mrs. Mandel again about all the facts of her
last interview with Beaton.

She gave them as fully as she could remember them,
and the old man made no comment on them. But he
went out directly after, and at the Every Other Week
office he climbed the stairs to Fulkerson's room and
asked for Beaton's address. Xo one yet had taken
charge of Conrad's work, and Fulkerson was running
the thing himself, as he said, till he could talk with
Dryfoos about it. The old man would not look into
the empty room where he had last seen his son alive;
he turned his face away and hurried by the door.

Xlli

THE course of public events carried Beaton's private
affairs beyond the reach of his simple first intention
to renounce his connection with Every Other Week.
In fact, this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed,
and long before it could be put in effect it appeared
still simpler to do nothing about the matter — to remain
passive and leave the initiative to Dryfoos, to maintain
the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognition of
any change in the situation come from those who had
caused the change. After all, it was rather absurd to
propose making a purely personal question the pivot
on which his relations with Every Other Week turned.
He took a hint from March's position and decided that
he did not know Dryfoos in these relations; he knew
only Fulkerson, who had certainly had nothing to do
with Mrs. Mandel's asking his intentions. As he re
flected upon this he became less eager to look Fulker
son up and make the magazine a partner of his own
sufferings. This was the soberer mood to which Beaton
trusted that night even before he slept, and he awoke
fully confirmed in it. As he examined the offence done
him in the cold light of day, he perceived that it had
not come either from Mrs. Mandel, who was visibly the
faltering and unwilling instrument of it, or from Chris
tine, who was altogether ignorant of it, but from Dry
foos, whom he could not hurt by giving up his place.
He could only punish Fulkerson by that, and Fulker-

35 531

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

son was innocent. Justice and interest alike dictated
the passive course to which Beaton inclined ; and he
reflected that he might safely leave the punishment of
Dryfoos to Christine, who would find out what had
happened, and would be able to take care of herself in
any encounter of tempers with her father.

Beaton did not go to the office during the week that
followed upon this conclusion ; but they were used
there to these sudden absences of his, and, as his work
for the time was in train, nothing was made of his
staying away, except the sarcastic comment which the
thought of him was apt to excite in the literary depart
ment. He no longer came so much to the Leightons,
and Fulkerson was in no state of mind to miss any
one there except Miss Woodburn, whom he never miss
ed. Beaton was left, then, unmolestedly awaiting the
course of destiny, when he read in the morning paper,
over his coffee at Maroni's, the deeply scare - headed
story of Conrad's death and the clubbing of Lindau.
He probably cared as little for either of them as any
man that ever saw them; but he felt a shock, if not a
pang, at Conrad's fate, so out of keeping with his life
and character. He did not know what to do; and he
did nothing. He was not asked to the funeral, but he
had not expected that, and, when Fulkerson brought
him notice that Lindau was also to be buried from
Dryfoos's house, it was without his usual sullen viri-
dictiveness that he kept away. In his sort, and as
much as a man could who was necessarily so much
taken up with himself, he was sorry for Conrad's
father; Beaton had a peculiar tenderness for his own
father, and he imagined how his father would feel if
it were he who had been killed in Conrad's place, as
it might very well have been ; he sympathized with
himself in view of the possibility ; and for once

532

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they were mistaken who thought him indifferent and
merely brutal in his failure to appear at Lindau's
obsequies.

lie would really have gone if he had known how to
reconcile his presence in that house with the terms of
his effective banishment from it; and he was rather
forgivingly finding himself wronged in the situation,
when Dryfoos knocked at the studio door the morning
after Lindau's funeral. Beaton roared out, " Come
in !" as he always did to a knock if he had not a model ;
if he had a model he set the door slightly ajar, and with
his palette on his thumb frowned at his visitor and
told him he could not come in. Dryfoos fumbled about
for the knob in the dim passageway outside, and Bea
ton, who had experience of people's difficulties with it,
suddenly jerked the door open. The two men stood
confronted, and at first sight of each other their quies
cent dislike revived. Each would have been willing to
turn away from the other, but that was not possible.
Beaton snorted some sort of inarticulate salutation,
which Dryfoos did not try to return ; he asked if he
could see him alone for a minute or two, and Beaton
bade him come in, and swept some paint-blotched rags
from the chair which he told him to take. He noticed,
as the old man sank tremulously into it, that his move
ment was like that of his own father, and also that he
looked very much like Christine. Dryfoos folded his
hands tremulously on the top of his horn-handled stick,
and he was rather finely haggard, with the dark hol
lows round his black eyes and the fall of the muscles
on either side of his chin. He had forgotten to take
his soft, wide-brimmed hat off; and Beaton felt a de
sire to sketch him just as he sat.

Dryfoos suddenly pulled himself together from the
dreary absence into which he fell at first. " Young

533

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

man," he began, " maybe I've come here on a fool's
errand," and Beaton rather fancied that beginning.

But it embarrassed him a little, and he said, with a
shy glance aside, " I don't know Avhat you mean."

" I reckon," Dryfoos answered, quietly, " you got
your notion, though. I set that woman on to speak to
you the way she done. But if there was anything
wrong in the way she spoke, or if you didn't feel like
she had any right to question you up as if we suspected
you of anything mean, I want you to say so."

Beaton said nothing, and the old man went on.

" I ain't very well up in the ways of the world, and
I don't pretend to be. All I want is to be fair and
square with everybody. I've made mistakes, though,
in my time — " He stopped, and Beaton was not proof
against the misery of his face, which was twisted as
with some strong physical ache. " I don't know as I
want to make any more, if I can help it. I don't know
but what you had a right to keep on comin', and if
you had I want you to say so. Don't you be afraid
but what I'll take it in the right way. I don't want
to take advantage of anybody, and I don't ask you to
say any more than that."

Beaton did not find the humiliation of the man who
had humiliated him so sweet as he could have fancied
it might be. He knew how it had come about, and
that it was an effect of love for his child; it did not
matter by what ungracious means she had brought him
to know that he loved her better than his own will, that
his wish for her happiness was stronger than his pride ;
it was enough that he was now somehow brought to give
proof of it. Beaton could not be aware of all that dark
coil of circumstance through which Dryfoos's present
action evolved itself; the worst of this was buried in
the secret of the old man's heart, a worm of perpetual

534

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

torment. What was apparent to another was that he
was broken by the sorrow that had fallen upon him,
and it was this that Beaton respected and pitied in his
impulse to be frank and kind in his answer.

" No, I had no right to keep coming to your house
in the way I did, unless — unless I meant more than
I ever said." Beaton added : " I don't say that what
you did was usual — in this country, at any rate; but
I can't say you were wrong. Since you speak to me
about the matter, it's only fair to myself to say that
a good deal goes on in life without much thinking of
consequences. That's the way I excuse myself."

" And you say Mrs. Mandel done right ?" asked
Dryfoos, as if he wished simply to be assured of a
point of etiquette.

u Yes, she did right, I've nothing to complain of."

" That's all I wanted to know," said Dryfoos ; but
apparently he had not finished, and he did not go,
though the silence that Beaton now kept gave him a
chance to do so. Tie began a series of questions which
had no relation to the matter in hand, though they were
strictly personal to Beaton. " What countryman are
you ?" he asked, after a moment.

" What countryman ?" Beaton frowned back at.
him.

" Yes, are you an American by birth ?""

" Yes ; I was born in Syracuse."

" Protestant ?"

" My father is a Scotch Seceder."

" What business is your father in ?"

Beaton faltered and blushed; then he answered:
" He's in the monument business, as he calls it. He's
a tombstone cutter." N"ow that he was launched, Bea-
ton saw no reason for not declaring, " My father's al
ways been a poor man, and worked with his own hands

535

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

for his living." He had too slight esteem socially for
Dryfoos to conceal a fact from him that he might have
wished to blink with others.

" Well, that's right," said Dryfoos. " I used to farm
it myself. I've got a good pile of money together, now.
At first it didn't come easy; but now it's got started
it pours in and pours in; it seems like there was no
end to it. I've got well on to three million ; but it
couldn't keep me from losin' my son. It can't buy me
back a minute of his life; not all the money in the
world can do it !"

He grieved this out as if to himself rather than to
Beaton, who scarcely ventured to say, " I know — I am
very sorry — "

" How did you come," Dryfoos interrupted, " to take
up paintin' ?"

" Well, I don't know," said Beaton, a little scorn
fully. " You don't take a thing of that kind up, I
fancy. I always wanted to paint."

" Father try to stop you ?"

" No. It wouldn't have been of any use. Why — "

" My son, he wanted to be a preacher, and I did stop
him — or I thought I did. But I reckon he was a
preacher, all the same, every minute of his life. As
you say, it ain't any use to try to stop a thing like that.
I reckon if a child has got any particular bent, it was
given to it; and it's goin' against the grain, it's goin'
against the law, to try to bend it some other way.
There's lots of good business men, Mr. Beaton, twenty
of 'em to every good preacher?"

" I imagine more than twenty," said Beaton, amused
and touched through his curiosity as to what the old
man was driving at by the quaint simplicity of his
speculations.

" Father ever come to the city ?"

536

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" No ; he never has the time ; and my mother's an
invalid."

" Oh ! Brothers and sisters ?"

" Yes ; we're a large family."

" I lost two little fellers — twins," said Dryfoos,
sadly. " But we hain't ever had but just the five.
Ever take portraits ?"

" Yes," said Beaton, meeting this zigzag in the
queries as seriously as the rest. " I don't think I am
good at it."

Dryfoos got to his feet. " I wish you'd paint a like
ness of my son. You've seen him plenty of times.
We won't fight about the price, don't you be afraid of
that."

Beaton was astonished, and in a mistaken way he
was disgusted. He saw that Dryfoos was trying to
undo Mrs. Mandel's work practically, and get him to
come again to his house ; that he now conceived of the
offence given him as condoned, and wished to restore
the former situation. He knew that he was attempting
this for Christine's sake, but he was not the man to
imagine that Dryfoos was trying not only to tolerate
him, but to like him; and, in fact, Dryfoos was not
wholly conscious himself of this end. What they both
understood was that Dryfoos was endeavoring to get at
Beaton through Conrad's memory; but with one this
was its dedication to a purpose of self - sacrifice, and
with the other a vulgar and shameless use of it.

" I couldn't do it," said Beaton. " I couldn't think
of attempting it."

"Why not1?" Dryfoos persisted. "We got some
photographs of him; he didn't like to sit very well;
but his mother got him to; and you know how he
looked."

" I couldn't do it — I couldn't. I can't even consider

537

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

it. I'm very sorry. I would, if it were possible. But
it isn't possible."

" I reckon if you see the photographs once —

" It isn't that, Mr. Dryfoos. But I'm not in the
way of that kind of thing any more."

" I'd give any price you've a mind to name — "

" Oh, it isn't the money !" cried Beaton, beginning
to lose control of himself.

The old man did not notice him. He sat with his
head fallen forward, and his chin resting on his folded
hands. Thinking of the portrait, he saw Conrad's face
before him, reproachful, astonished, but all gentle as
it looked when Conrad caught his hand that day after
he struck him ; he heard him say, " Father !" and the
sweat gathered on his forehead. " Oh, my God !" he
groaned. " NTo ; there ain't anything I can do now."

Beaton did not know whether Dryfoos was speaking
to him or not. He started toward him. " Are you ill ?"

" No, there ain't anything the matter," said the old
man. " But I guess I'll lay down on your settee a
minute." He tottered with Beaton's help to the aes
thetic couch covered with a tiger-skin, on which Beaton
had once thought of painting a Cleopatra ; but he could
never get the right model. As the old man stretched
himself out on it, pale and suffering, he did not look
much like a Cleopatra, but Beaton was struck with his
effectiveness, and the likeness between him and his
daughter; she would make a very good Cleopatra in
some ways. All the time, while these thoughts passed
through his mind, he was afraid Dryfoos would die.
The old man fetched his breath in gasps, which pres
ently smoothed and lengthened into his normal breath
ing. Beaton got him a glass of wine, and after tasting
it he sat up.

" You've got to excuse me," he said, getting back to

538

A II YZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

his characteristic grimness with surprising suddenness,
when once he began to recover himself. " I've beeii
through a good deal lately; and sometimes it ketches
me round the heart like a pain."

In his life of selfish immunity from grief, Beaton
could not understand this experience that poignant sor
row brings; he said to himself that Dryfoos was going
the way of angina pectoris; as he began shuffling off the
-kin he said : ** Had yon better get up '. Wouldn't
you like me to call a dor-tor '"

" I'm all right, young man." Dryfoos took his hat
and stick from him, but he made for the door so un
certainly that Beaton put his hand under his elbow and
helped him out, and down the stairs, to his coupe.

" Hadn't you better let me drive home with you ?"
he asked.

" What '." .-aid Dryfoos. suspiciously.

Beaton repeated his question.

" I ii IK— I'm able to go home alone," said Dryfoos,
in a =urly tone, and he put his head out of the window
and called up " Home!" to the driver, who imraediate-
rted off and left Beaton standing beside the curb
stone. •

XIV

BEATON wasted the rest of the clay in the emotions
and speculations which Dryfoos's call inspired. It was
not that they continuously occupied him, but they broke
up the train of other thoughts, and spoiled him for
work; a very little spoiled Beaton for work; he re
quired just the right mood for work. He compre
hended perfectly well that Dryfoos had made him that
extraordinary embassy because he wished him to renew
his visits, and he easily imagined the means that had
brought him to this pass. From what he knew of that
girl he did not envy her father his meeting with her
when he must tell her his mission had failed. But
had it failed ? When Beaton came to ask himself this
question, he could only perceive that he and Dryfoos
had failed to find any ground of sympathy, and had
parted in the same dislike with which they had met.
But as to any other failure, it was certainly tacit, and
it still rested with him to give it effect. He could go
back to Dryfoos's house, as freely as before, and it was
clear that he was very much desired to come back. But
if he went back it was also clear that he must go back
with intentions more explicit than before, and now he
had to ask himself just how much or how little he had
meant by going there. His liking for Christine had
certainly not increased, but the charm, on the other
hand, of holding a leopardess in leash had not yet palled
upon him. In his life of inconstancies, it was a pleas-

540

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

lire to rest upon something fixed, and the man who had
no control over himself liked logically enough to feel
his control of some one else. The fact cannot other
wise be put in terms, and the attraction which Christine
Dryfoos had for him, apart from this, escapes from all
terms, as anything purely and merely passional must,
lie had seen from the first that she was a cat, and so
far as youth forecasts such things, lie felt that she
would be a shrew. But he had a perverse sense of
her beauty, and he knew a sort of life in which her
power to molest him with her temper could be reduced
to the smallest proportions, and even broken to pieces.
Then the consciousness of her money entered. It was
evident that the old man had mentioned his millions
in the way of a hint to him of what he might reason
ably expect if he would turn and be his son-in-law.
Beaton did not put it to himself in those words; and
in fact his cogitations were not in words at all. It
was the play of cognitions, of sensations, formlessly
tending to the effect which can only be very clumsily
interpreted in language. But when he got to this point
in them, Beaton rose to magnanimity and in a flash
of dramatic reverie disposed of a part of Dryfoos's
riches in placing his father and mother, and his broth
ers and sisters, beyond all pecuniary anxiety forever.
He had no shame, no scruple in this, for he had been
a pensioner upon others ever since a Syracusan amateur
of the arts had detected his talent and given him the
money to go and study abroad. Beaton had always
considered the money a loan, to be repaid out of his
future success; but he now never dreamt of repay
ing it ; as the man was rich, he had even a contempt for
the notion of repaying him; but this did not prevent
him from feeling very keenly the hardships he put his
father to in borrowing money from him, though he

541

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

never repaid his father, either. In this reverie he saw
himself sacrificed in marriage with Christine Dryfoos,
in a kind of admiring self-pity, and he was melted by
the spectacle of the dignity with which he suffered all
the lifelong trials ensuing from his unselfishness. The
fancy that Alma Leighton came bitterly to regret him,
contributed to soothe and flatter him, and he was not
sure that Margaret Vance did not suffer a like loss in
him.

There had been times when, as he believed, that
beautiful girl's high thoughts had tended toward him;
there had been looks, gestures, even words, that had
this effect to him, or that seemed to have had it; and
Beaton saw that he might easily construe Mrs. Horn's
confidential appeal to him to get Margaret interested in
art again as something by no means necessarily of
fensive, even though it had been made to him as to a
master of illusion. If Mrs. Horn had to choose be
tween him and the life of good works to which her
niece was visibly abandoning herself, Beaton could
not doubt which she would choose; the only question
was how real the danger of a life of good works was.

As he thought of these two girls, one so charming
and the other so divine, it became indefinitely difficult
to renounce them for Christine Dryfoos, with her sultry
temper and her earthbound ideals. Life had been so
flattering to Beaton hitherto that he could not believe
them both finally indifferent ; and if they were not in
different, perhaps he did not wish either of them to be
very definite. What he really longed for was their
sympathy; for a man who is able to walk round quite
ruthlessly on the feelings of others often has very ten
der feelings of his own, easily lacerated, and eagerly
responsive to the caresses of compassion. In this frame
Beaton determined to go that afternoon, though it was

542

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

not Mrs. Horn's day, and call upon her in the hope of
possibly seeing Miss Vance alone. As he continued in
it, he took this for a sign and actually went. It did
not fall out at once as he wished,, but he got Mrs. Horn
to talking again about her niece, and Mrs. Horn again
regretted that nothing could be done by the fine arts to
reclaim Margaret from good works.

" Is she at home ? Will you let me see her B" asked
Beaton, with something of the scientific interest of a
physician inquiring for a patient whose symptoms have
been rehearsed to him. He had not asked for her be
fore.

" Yes, certainly," said Mrs. Horn, and she went
herself to call Margaret, and she did not return with
her. The girl entered with the gentle grace peculiar
to her; and Beaton, bent as he was on his own con
solation, could not help being struck with the spiritual
exaltation of her look. At sight of her, the vague hope
he had never quite relinquished, that they might be
something more than aesthetic friends, died in his heart.
She wore black, as she often did; but in spite of its
fashion her dress received a nun-like effect from the
pensive absence of her face. " Decidedly," thought
Beaton, " she is far gone in good works."

But he rose, all the same, to meet her on the old
level, and he began at once to talk to her of the subject
he had been discussing with her aunt. He said frank
ly that they both felt she had unjustifiably turned
her back upon possibilities which she ought not to
neglect.

" You know very well," she answered, " that I
couldn't do anything in that way worth the time I
should waste on it. Don't talk of it, please. I sup
pose my aunt has been asking you to say this, but it's
no use. I'm sorry it's no use, she wishes it so much;

543

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

but I'm not sorry otherwise. You can find the pleas
ure at least of doing good work in it ; but I couldn't
find anything in it but a barren amusement. Mr. Wet-
more 'is right; for me, it's like enjoying an opera, or
a ball."

" That's one of Wetrnore's phrases. He'd sacrifice
anything to them."'

She put aside the whole subject with a look. " You
were not at Mr. Dryfoos's the other day. Have you
seen them, any of them, lately ?"

" I haven't been there for some time, no," said Bea
ton, evasively. But he thought if he was to get on to
anything, he had better be candid. " Mr. Dryfoos was
at my studio this morning. He's got a queer notion.
He wants me to paint his son's portrait."

She started. " And will you — "

" !N"o, I couldn't do such a thing. It isn't in my
way. I told him so. His son had a beautiful face —
an antique profile; a sort of early Christian type; but
I'm too much of a pagan for that sort of thing."

" Yes."

" Yes," Beaton continued, not quite liking her assent
after he had invited it. He had his pride in being a
pagan, a Greek, but it failed him in her presence, now ;
and he wished that she had protested he was none.
" He was a singular creature ; a kind of survival ; an
exile in our time and place. I don't know: we don't
quite expect a saint to be rustic ; but with all his good
ness Conrad Dryfoos was a country person. If he were
not dying for a cause you could imagine him milk
ing." Beaton intended a contempt that came from the
bitterness of having himself once milked the family
cow.

His contempt did not reach Miss Vance. "He died

for a cause," she said. " The holiest."

544

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Of labor ?"

" Of peace. He was there to persuade the strikers
to be quiet and go home."

" I haven't been quite sure,1' said Beaton. " But in
any case he had no business there. The police were
mi hand to do the persuading."

"I can't let you talk so!" cried the girl. "It's
shocking! Oh, I know it's the way people talk, and
the worst is that in the sight of the world it's the right
way. But the blessing on the peacemakers is not for
the policemen with their clubs."

Beaton saw that she was nervous; he made his re
flection that she was altogether too far gone in good
works for the fine arts to reach her ; he began to think
how he could turn her primitive Christianity to the
account of his modern heathenism. He had no deeper
design than to get flattered back into his own favor
far enough to find courage for some sort of decisive
step. In his heart he was trying to will whether he
should or should not go back to Dryfoos's house. It
could not be from the caprice that had formerly taken
him; it must be from a definite purpose; again he
realized this. " Of course ; you are right," he said.
" I wish I could have answered that old man different
ly. I fancy he was bound up in his son, though he
quarrelled with him, and crossed him. But I couldn't
do it; it wasn't possible." He said to himself that if
she said " No," now, he would be ruled by her agree
ment with him; and if she disagreed with him, he
would be ruled still by the chance, and would go no
more to the Dryfooses'. He found himself embarrassed
to the point of blushing when she said nothing, and
left him, as it were, on his own hands. " I should like
to have given him that comfort ; I fancy he hasn't much
comfort in life; but there seems no comfort in me."

545

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

He dropped his head in a fit attitude for compassion ;
but she poured no pity upon it.

" There is no comfort for us in ourselves," she said.
" It's hard to get outside ; but there's only despair
within. When we think we have done something for
others, by some great effort, we find it's all for our own
vanity."

" Yes," said Beaton. " If I could paint pictures for
righteousness' sake, I should have been glad to do Con
rad Dryfoos for his father. I felt sorry for him. Did
the rest seem very much broken up? You saw them
all ?"

" Not all. Miss Dryfoos was ill, her sister said.
It's hard to tell how much people suffer. His mother
seemed bewildered. The younger sister is a simple
creature; she looks like him; I think she must have
something of his spirit."

" Not much spirit of any kind, I imagine," said
Beaton. " But she's amiably material. Did they say
Miss Dryfoos was seriously ill ?"

" No. I supposed she might be prostrated by her
brother's death."

" Does she seem that kind of person to you, Miss
Vance?" asked Beaton.

" I don't know. I haven't tried to see so much of
them as I might, the past winter. I was not sure about
her when I met her; I've never seen much of people,
except in my own set, and the — very poor. I have been
afraid I didn't understand her. She may have a kind
of pride that would not let her do herself justice."

Beaton felt the unconscious dislike in the endeavor
of praise. " Then she seems to you like a person whose
life — its trials, its chances — would make more of than
she is now ?"

" I didn't say that. I can't judge of her at all ; but

546

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

where we don't know, don't yon think we ought to im
agine the best ?"

" Oh yes," said Beaton. " I didn't know but what I
once said of them might have prejudiced you against
them. I have accused myself of it." He always took
a tone of conscientiousness, of self-censure, in talking
with Miss Vance ; he could not help it.

" Oh no. And I never allowed myself to form any
judgment of her. She is very pretty, don't you think,
in a kind of way?"

" Very."

"She has a beautiful brunette coloring: that floury
white and the delicate pink in it. Her eyes are beau
tiful."

" She's graceful, too," said Beaton. " I've tried her
in color; but I didn't make it out,"

" I've wondered sometimes," said Miss Vance,
" whether that elusive quality you find in some peo
ple you try to paint doesn't characterize them all
through. Miss Dryfoos might be ever so much finer
and better than we would find out in the society way
that seems the only way."

" Perhaps," said Beaton, gloomily ; and he went
away profoundly discouraged by this last analysis of
Christine's character. The angelic imperviousness of
Miss Vance to properties of which his own wickedness
was so keenly aware in Christine might have made him
laugh, if it had not been such a serious affair with him.
As it was, he smiled to think how very differently Alma
Leighton would have judged her from Miss Vance's
premises. He liked that clear vision of Alma's even
when it pierced his own disguises. Yes, that was the
light he had let die out, and it might have shone upon
his path through life. Beaton never felt so poignantly
the disadvantage of having on any given occasion been

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

wanting to his own interests through his self-love ;is
in this. He had no one to blame but himself for what
had happened, but he blamed Alma for what might
happen in the future because she shut out the way of
retrieval and return. When he thought of the attitude
she had taken toward him, it seemed incredible, and
he was always longing to give her a final chance to
reverse her final judgment. It appeared to him that
the time had come for this now, if ever.

XV

WHILE we are still young we feel a kind of pride,
a sort of fierce pleasure, in any important experience,
such as we have read of or heard of in the lives of
others, no matter how painful. It was this pride, this
pleasure, which Beaton now felt in realizing that the
toils of fate were about him, that between him and a
future of which Christine Dryfoos must be the genius
there was nothing but the will, the mood, the fancy
of a girl who had not given him the hope that either
could ever again be in his favor. He had nothing to
trust to, in fact, but his knowledge that he had once
had them all; she did not deny that; but neither did
she conceal that he had Hung away his power over them,
and she had told him that they never could be his again.
A man knows that he can love and wholly cease to
love, not once merely, but several times; he recognizes
the fact in regard to himself, both theoretically and
practically; but in regard to women he cherishes the
superstition of the romances that love is once for all,
and forever. It was because Beaton would not believe
that Alma Leighton, being a woman, could put him
out of her heart after suffering him to steal into it,
that he now hoped anything from her, and she had
been so explicit when they last spoke of that affair that
he did not hope much. He said to himself that he
was going to cast himself on her mercy, to take what
ever chance of life, love, and work there was in her
having the smallest pity -on him. If she would have

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

none, then there was but one thing he could do : marry
Christine and go abroad. He did not see how he could
bring this alternative to bear upon Alma; even if she
knew what he would do in case of a final rejection, he
had grounds for fearing she would not care; but he
brought it to bear upon himself, and it nerved him to
a desperate courage. He could hardly wait for evening
to come, before he went to see her; when it came, it
seemed to have come too soon. He had wrought him
self thoroughly into the conviction that he was in ear
nest, and that everything depended upon her answer to
him, but it was not till he found himself in her pres
ence, and alone with her, that he realized the truth of
his conviction. Then the influences of her grace, her
gayety, her arch beauty, above all, her good sense,
penetrated his soul like a subtle intoxication, and he
said to himself that he was right; he could not live
without her; these attributes of hers were what he
needed to win him, to cheer him, to charm him, to
guide him. He longed so to please her, to ingratiate
himself with her, that he attempted to be light like
her in his talk, but lapsed into abysmal absences and
gloomy recesses of introspection.

" What are you laughing at ?" he asked, suddenly
starting from one of these.

" What you are thinking of."

" It's nothing to laugh at. Do you know what it is
I'm thinking of ?"

" Don't tell, if it's dreadful."

" Oh, I dare say you wouldn't think it's dreadful,"
he said, with bitterness. " It's simply the case of a
man who has made a fool of himself and sees no help
of retrieval in himself."

u Can any one else help a man unmake a fool of
himself?" she asked, with a smile.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" Yes. In a case like this."

"Dear me! This is very interesting."

She did not ask him what the case was, but he was
launched now, and he pressed on. " I am the man who
has made a fool of himself — "

" Oh !"

" And you can help me out if you will. Alma, I
wish you could see me as I really am."

" Do you, Mr. Beaton ? Perhaps I do."

" No ; you don't. You formulated me in a cer
tain way, and you won't allow for the change that
takes place in every one. You have changed; why
shouldn't I?"

" Has this to do with vour having made a fool of
yourself?"

" Yes."

" Oh ! Then I don't see how you have changed."

She laughed, and he too, ruefully. u You're cruel.
Not but what I deserve your mockery. But the change
was not from the capacity of making va fool of myself.
I suppose I shall always do that more or less — unless
you help me. Alma ! Why can't you have a little
compassion ? You know that I must always love you."

" Nothing makes me doubt that like your saying it,
Mr. Beaton. But now you've broken your word — "

" You are to blame for that. You knew T couldn't
keep it!"

" Yes, I'm to blame. I was wrong to let you come
— after that. And so I forgive you for speaking to me
in that way again. But it's perfectly impossible and
perfectly useless for me to hear you any more on that
subject; and so — good-bye!"

She rose, and he perforce with her. " And do you
mean it ?" he asked. " Forever ?"

" Forever. This is truly the last time T will ever

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A HAZARD OP NEW FORTUNES

see you if I can help it. Oh, I feel sorry enough for
you !" she said, with a glance at his face. " I do be
lieve you are in earnest. But it's too late now. Don't
let us talk about it any more! But we shall, if we
meet, and so —

" And so good-bye ! Well, I've nothing more to say,
and I might as well say that. I think you've been very
good to me. It seems to me as if you had been — shall
I say it ? — trying to give me a chance. Is that so ?"

She dropped her eyes and did not answer.

" You found it was no use ! Well, I thank you for
trying. It's curious to think that I once had your
trust, your regard, and now I haven't it. You don't
mind my remembering that I had ? It '11 be some little
consolation, and I believe it will be some help. I know
I can't retrieve the past now. It is too late. It seems
too preposterous — perfectly lurid — that I could have
been going to tell you what a tangle I'd got myself in,
and to ask you to help untangle me. I must choke in
the infernal coil, but I'd like to have the sweetness of
your pity in it — whatever it is."

She put out her hand. " Whatever it is, I do pity
you ; I said that."

" Thank you." He kissed the hand she gave him
and went.

He had gone on some such terms before ; was it now
for the last time? She believed it was. She felt in
herself a satiety, a fatigue, in which his good looks, his
invented airs and poses, his real trouble, were all alike
repulsive. She did not acquit herself of the wrong of
having let him think she might yet have liked him as
she once did; but she had been honestly willing to see
whether she could. It had mystified her to find that
when they first met in Xew York, after their summer
in St. Barnaby, she cared nothing for him; she had

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

expected to punish him for his neglect, and then fancy
him as hefore, but she did not. More and more she
saw him selfish and mean, weak-willed, narrow-minded,
and hard-hearted ; and aimless, with all his talent. She
admired his talent in proportion as she learned more of
artists, and perceived how uncommon it was; but she
said to herself that if she were going to devote herself
to art, she would do it at first-hand. She was perfectly
serene and happy in her final rejection of Beaton; he
had worn out not only her fancy, but her sympathy, too.

This was what her mother would not believe when
Alma reported the interview to her; she would not be
lieve it was the last time they should meet ; death itself
can hardly convince us that it is the last time of any
thing, of everything between ourselves and the dead.
" Well, Alma,77 she said, " I hope you'll never regret
what you've done."

" You may be sure I shall not regret it. If ever
I'm low-spirited about anything, I'll think of giving
Mr. Beaton his freedom, and that will cheer me up."

" And don't you expect to get married ? Do you in
tend to be an old maid ?" demanded her mother, in the
bonds of the superstition women have so long been un
der to the effect that every woman must wish to get
married, if for no other purpose than to avoid being an
old maid.

" Well, mamma," said Alma, " I intend being a
young one for a few years yet; and then I'll see. If
I meet the right person, all well and good ; if not, not.
But I shall pick and choose, as a man does ; I won't
merely be picked and chosen."

" You can't help yourself ; you may be very glad if
you are picked and chosen."

" What nonsense, mamma ! A girl can get any man
she wants, if she goes about it the right way. And

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

when my i fated fairy prince ' comes along, I shall just
simply make furious love to him and grab him. Of
course, I shall make a decent pretence of talking in
my sleep. I believe it's done that way more than half
the time. The fated fairy prince wouldn't see the
princess in nine cases out of ten if she didn't say some
thing; he would go mooning along after the maids of
honor."

Mrs. Leighton tried to look unspeakable horror; but
she broke down and laughed. " Well, you are a strange
girl, Alma."

" I don't know about that. But one thing I do know,
mamma, and that is that Prince Beaton isn't the F. F.
P. for me. How strange you are, mamma ! Don't you
think it would be perfectly disgusting to accept a per
son you didn't care for, and let him go on and love you
and marry you ? It's sickening."

" Why, certainly, Alma. It's only because I know
you did care fo^ him once — "

u And now I don't. And he didn't care for me once,
and now he does. And so we're quits.''

•' If I could believe—

" You had better brace up and try, mamma ; for as
Mr. Fulkerson says, it's as sure as guns. From the
crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he's loathsome
to me ; and he keeps getting loathsomer. Ugh ! Good
night!"

XVI

" WELL, I guess she's given him the grand bounce
at last," said Fulkerson to March in one of their mo
ments of confidence at the office. " That's Mad's in
ference from appearances — and disappearances ; and
some little hints from Ma Leigh ton."

" Well, I don't know that I have any criticisms to
offer/' said March. " It may be bad for Beaton, but
it's a very good thing for Miss Leighton. Upon the
whole, I believe I congratulate her."

" Well, I don't know. I always kind of hoped it
would turn out the other way. You know I always had
a sneaking fondness for the fellow."

" Miss Leighton seems not to have had."

" It's a pity she hadn't. I tell you, March, it ain't
so easy for a girl to get married, here in the East, that
she can afford to despise any chance."

" Isn't that rather a low view of it?"

" It's a common-sense view. Beaton has the making
of a first-rate fellow in him. He's the raw material
of a great artist and a good citizen. All he wants is
somebody to take him in hand and keep him from
makin' an ass of himself and kickin' over the traces
generally, and ridin' two or three horses bareback at
once."

" It seems a simple problem, though the metaphor
is rather complicated," said March. " But talk to Miss
Leighton about it. 7 haven't given Beaton the grand
bounce."

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

lie began to turn over the manuscripts on his table,
and Fnlkerson went away. But March found himself
thinking of the matter from time to time during the
day, and he spoke to his wife about it when he went,
home. She surprised him by taking Fulkerson's view
of it,

" Yes, it's a pity she couldn't have made up her
mind to have him. It's better for a woman to be
married."

" I thought Paul only went so far as to say it was
well. But what would become of Miss Leighton's
artistic career if she married ?"

"Oh, her artistic career!" said Mrs. March, with
matronly contempt of it.

" But look here !" cried her husband. " Suppose she
doesn't like him ?"

u How can a girl of that age tell whether she likes
any one or not?"

" It seems to me you were able to tell at that age,
Isabel. But let's examine this thing. (This thing!
I believe Fulkerson is characterizing my whole par
lance, as well as your morals.) Why shouldn't we re
joice as much at a non-marriage as a marriage ? When
we consider the enormous risks people take in linking
their lives together, after not half so much thought as
goes to an ordinary horse trade, I think we ought to
be glad whenever they don't do it. I believe that this
popular demand for the matrimony of others comes
from our novel-reading. We get to thinking that there
is no other happiness or good - fortune in life except
marriage; and it's offered in fiction as the highest
premium for virtue, courage, beauty, learning, and
saving human life. We all know it isn't. We know
that in reality marriage is dog cheap, and anybody can
have it for the asking — if he keeps asking enough

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

people. By-and-by some fellow will wake up and see
that a first-class story can be written from the anti-
marriage point of view; and he'll begin with an en
gaged couple, and devote his novel to disengaging them
and rendering them separately happy ever after in the
denouement. It will make his everlasting fortune."

" Why don't you write it, Basil ?" she asked. " It's
a delightful idea. You could do it splendidly."

He became fascinated with the notion. He de
veloped it in detail; but at the end he sighed and
said: "With this Every Other Week work on my
hands, of course I can't attempt a novel. But per
haps I sha'n't have it long."

She was instantly anxious to know what lie meant,
and the novel and Miss Leighton's affair were both
dropped out of their thoughts. " What do you mean ?
Has Mr. Fulkerson said anything yet ?"

" Not a word. He knows no more about it than I
do. Dryfoos hasn't spoken, and we're both afraid to
ask him. Of course, I couldn't ask him."

" No."

" But it's pretty uncomfortable, to be kept hanging
by the gills so, as Fulkerson says."

" Yes, we don't know what to do."

March and Fulkerson said the same to each other ;
and Fulkerson said that if the old man pulled out, he
did not know what would happen. He had no capital
to carry the thing on, and the very fact that the old
man had pulled out would damage it so that it would
be hard to get anybody else to put it. In the mean
time Fulkerson was running Conrad's office-work, when
he ought to be looking after the outside interests of the
thing; and he could not see the day when he could get
married.

" I don't know which it's worse for, March : you

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

or me. I don't know, under the circumstances, whether
it's worse to have a family or to want to have one. Of
course — of course ! We can't hurry the old man up.
It wouldn't be decent, and it would be dangerous. We
got to wait."

He almost decided to draw upon Dryfoos for some
money; he did not need any, but he said maybe the
demand would act as a hint upon him. One day, about
a week after Alma's final rejection of Beaton, Dryfoos
came into March's office. Fulkerson wras out, but the
old man seemed not to have tried to see him.

He put his hat on the floor by his chair, after he
sat down, and looked at March awhile with his old
eyes, which had the vitreous glitter of old eyes stimu
lated to sleeplessness. Then he said, abruptly, " Mr.
March, how would you like to take this thing off my
hands ?"

" I don't understand, exactly," March began ; but
of course he understood that Dryfoos was offering to
let him have Every Other Week on some terms or other,
and his heart leaped with hope.

The old man knew he understood, and so he did not
explain. He said : " I am going to Europe, to take my
family there. The doctor thinks it might do my wife
some good ; and I ain't very well myself, and my girls
both want to go; and so we're goin'. If you want to
take this thing off my hands, I reckon I can let you
have it in 'most any shape you say. You're all settled
here in !N"ew York, and I don't suppose you want to
break up, much, at your time of life, and I've been
thinkin' whether you wouldn't like to take the thing."

The word, which Dryfoos had now used three times,
made March at last think of Fulkerson ; he had been
filled too full of himself to think of any one else till
he had mastered the notion of such wonderful good-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

fortune as seemed about falling to him. But now he
did think of Fulkerson, and with some shame and con
fusion ; for he remembered how, when Dryfoos had
last approached him there on the business of his con
nection with Every Oilier Week, he had been very
haughty with him, and told him that he did not know
him in this connection. ITe blushed to find how far
his thoughts had now run without encountering this
obstacle of etiquette.

" Have you spoken to Mr. Fulkerson ?" he asked.

" Xo, I hain't. It ain't a question of management.
It's a question of buying and selling. I offer the thing
to you first. I reckon Fulkerson couldn't get on very
well without you."

March saw the real difference in the two cases, and
lie was glad to see it, hecause he could act more de
cisively if not hampered by an obligation to consistency.
" I am gratified, of course, Mr. Dryfoos ; extremely
gratified; and it's no use pretending that I shouldn't
be happy beyond bounds to get possession of Every
Other Week. But I don't feel quite free to talk about
it apart from Mr. Fulkerson."

" Oh, all right !" said the old man, with quick offence.

March hastened to say : " I feel bound to Mr. Ful
kerson in every way. He got me to come here, and I
couldn't even seem to act without him."

He put it questioningly, and the old man answered :
" Yes, I can see that. When '11 he be in ? I can wait."
But he looked impatient.

" Very soon, now," said March, looking at his watch.
" He was only to be gone a moment," and while he
went on to talk with Dryfoos, he wondered why the
old man should have come first to speak with him, and
whether it was from some obscure wish to make him
reparation for displeasures in the past, or from a dis-

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

trust or dislike of Fulkerson. Whichever light he look
ed at it in, it was flattering.

" Do you think of going abroad soon ?" he asked.

"\Yluit* Yes — I don't know — I reckon. We got
our passage engaged. It's on one of them French boats.
We're goiii' to Paris."

" Oh ! That will be interesting to the young
ladies."

" Yes. I reckon we're goin' for them. 'Tairi't likely
my wife and me would want to pull up stakes at our
age," said the old man, sorrowfully.

" But you may find it do you good, Mr. Dryfoos,"
said March, with a kindness that was real, mixed as
it was with the selfish interest he now had in the in
tended voyage.

" Well, maybe, maybe," sighed the old man ; and lie
dropped his head forward. " It don't make a great
deal of difference what we do or we don't do, for the
few years left."

" I hope Mrs. Dryfoos is as well as usual." said
March, finding the ground delicate and difficult.

" Middlin', middlin'," said the old man. "My
daughter Christine, she ain't very well."

" Oh," said March. It was quite impossible for him
to affect a more explicit interest in the fact. He and
Dryfoos sat silent for a few moments, and he was vain
ly casting about in his thought for something else which
would tide them over the interval till Fulkerson came,
when he heard his step on the stairs.

" Hello, hello !" he said. " Meeting of the clans !"
It was always a meeting of the clans, with Fulkerson,
or a field day, or an extra session, or a regular con
clave, whenever he saw people of any common interest
together. " Hain't seen yon here for a good while, Mr.
Dryfoos. Did think some of running away with Every

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Other Week one while, but couldn't seem to work March
up to the point."

He gave Dryfoos his hand, and pushed aside the
papers on the corner of March's desk, and sat down
there, and went on briskly with the nonsense he could
always talk while he was waiting for another to de
velop any matter of business ; he told March afterward
that he scented business in the air as soon as he came
into the room where he and Dryfoos were sitting.

Dryfoos seemed determined to leave the word to
March, who said, after an inquiring look at him,
" Mr. Dryfoos has been proposing to let us have
Every Oilier Week, Fulkerson."

"Well, that's good; that suits yours truly; March
& Fulkerson, publishers and proprietors, won't pretend
it don't, if the terms are all right."

" The terms," said the old man, " are whatever you
want 'em. I haven't got any more use for the con
cern — He gulped, and stopped ; they knew what he
was thinking of, and they looked down in pity. He
went on : "I won't put any more money in it ; but what
I've put in a'ready can stay ; and you can pay me four
per cent."

He got upon his feet; and March and Fulkerson
stood, too.

" Well, I call that pretty white," said Fulkerson.
" It's a bargain as far as I'm concerned. I suppose
you'll want to talk it over with your wife, March?"

" Yes ; I shall," said March. " I can see that it's
a great chance; but I want to talk it over with my
wife."

" Well, that's right," said the old man. " Let me
hear from you to-morrow."

He went out, and Fulkerson began to dance round
the room. He caught March about his stalwart girth

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

and tried to make him waltz; the office-boy came to
the door and looked 011 with approval.

" Come, come, you idiot !" said March, rooting him
self to the carpet.

" It's just throwing the thing into our mouths," said
Fulkerson. " The wedding will be this day week.
No cards ! Teedle-lmnpty-diddle ! Teedle-lumpty-dee I
What do you suppose he means by it, March ?" he ask
ed, bringing himself soberly up, of a sudden. " What
is his little game ? Or is he crazy ? It don't seem like
the Dryfoos of itry previous acquaintance."

" I suppose," March suggested, " that he's got money
enough, so that he don't care for this — '

" Pshaw ! You're a poet ! Don't you know that the
more money that kind of man has got, the more he
cares for money ? It's some fancy of his — like having
Lindau's funeral at his house — By Jings, March, I
believe you're his fancy!"

" Oh, now! Don't you be a poet, Fulkerson!"

"I do ! He seemed to take a kind of shine to you
from the day you wouldn't turn off old Lindau; he
did, indeed. It kind of shook him up. It made him
think you had something in you. He was deceived by
appearances. Look here ! I'm going round to see Mrs.
March with you, and explain the thing to her. I know
Mrs. March ! She wouldn't believe you knew what you
were going in for. She has a great respect for your
mind, but she don't think you've got any sense.
Heigh?"

" All right," said March, glad of the notion ; and
it was really a comfort to have F^ulkerson with him to
develop all the points ; and it was delightful to see how
clearly and quickly she seized them; it made March
proud of her. She was only angry that they had lost
any time in coming to submit so plain a case to her.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mr. Dryfoos might change his mind in the night, and
then everything would be lost. They must go to him
instantly, and tell him that they accepted; they must
telegraph him.

" Might as well send a district messenger ; he'd get
there next week," said Fulkerson. " No, no! It Ml
all keep till to-morrow, and be the better for it. If
he's got this fancy for March, as I say, he ain't agoing
to change it in a single night. People don't change
their fancies for March in a lifetime. Heigh?"

When Fulkerson turned up very early at the office
next morning, as March did, he was less strenuous
about Dryfoos's fancy for March. It was as if Miss
Woodburn might have blown cold upon that theory, as
something unjust to his own merit, for which she would
naturally be more jealous than he.

March told him what he had forgotten to tell him
the day before, though he had been trying, all through
their excited talk, to get it in, that the Dryfooses were
going abroad.

"Oh, ho!" cried Fulkerson. "That's the milk in
the cocoanut, is it ? Well, I thought there must be
something."

But this fact had not changed Mrs. March at all in
her conviction that it was Mr. Dryfoos's fancy for her
husband which had moved him to make him this ex
traordinary offer, and she reminded him that it had
first been made to him, without regard to Fulkerson.
" And perhaps," she went on, " Mr. Dryfoos has been
changed — softened; and doesn't find money all in all
any more. He's had enough to change him, poor old
man!"

" Does anything from without change us ?" her hus
band mused aloud. " We're brought up to think so by

the novelists, who really have the charge of people's
37 5C3

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

thinking, nowadays. But I doubt it, especially if the
thing outside is some great event, something cata-
clysmal, like this tremendous sorrow of Dryfoos's."

" Then what is it that changes us ?" demanded his
wife, almost angry with him for his heresy.

" Well, it won't do to say, the Holy Spirit indwell
ing. That would sound like cant at this day. But the
old fellows that used to say that had some glimpses of
the truth. They knew that it is the still, small voice
that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.
I suppose I should have to say that we didn't change
at all. We develop. There's the making of several
characters in each of us ; we are each several char
acters, and sometimes this character has the lead in
us, and sometimes that. From what Fulkerson has
told me of Dryfoos, I should say he had always had
the potentiality of better things in him than he has
ever been yet; and perhaps the time has come for the
good to have its chance. The growth in one direction
has stopped ; it's begun in another ; that's all. The
man hasn't been changed by his son's death ; it stunned,
it benumbed him ; but it couldn't change him. It was
an event, like any other, and it had to happen as much
as his being born. It was forecast from the beginning
of time, and was as entirely an effect of his coming into
the world — "

" Basil ! Basil !" cried his wife. " This is fatalism !"

" Then you think," he said, " that a sparrow falls to
the ground without the will of God?" and he laughed
provokingly. But he went on more soberly : " I don't
know what it all means, Isabel, though I believe it
means good. What did Christ himself say ? That if
one rose from the dead it would not avail. And yet
we are always looking for the miraculous! I believe
that unhappy old man truly grieves for his son, whom

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he treated cruelly without the final intention of cruelty,
for he loved him and wished to be proud of him; but
I don't think his death has changed him, any more
than the smallest event in the chain of events remotely
working through his nature from the beginning. But
why do you think he's changed at all? Because he
offers to sell me Every Other Week on easy terms ? He
says himself that he has no further use for the thing;
and he knows perfectly well that he couldn't get his
money out of it now,- without an enormous shrinkage.
He couldn't appear at this late day as the owner, and
sell it to anybody but Fulkerson and me for a fifth
of what it's cost him. He can sell it to us for all it's
cost him; and four per cent, is no bad interest on his
money till we can pay it back. It's a good thing for
us; but we have to ask whether Dryfoos has done us
the good, or whether it's the blessing of Heaven. If
it's merely the blessing of Heaven, I don't propose
being grateful for it."

March laughed again, and his wife said, " It's dis
gusting."

" It's business," he assented. " Business is business ;
but I don't say it isn't disgusting. Lindau had a low
opinion of it."

" I think that with all his faults Mr. Dryfoos is a
better man than Lindau," she proclaimed.

" Well, he's certainly able to offer us a better thing
in Every Other Week" said March.

She knew he was enamoured of the literary finish of
his cynicism, and that at heart he was as humbly and
truly grateful as she was for the good-fortune opening
to them.

XVII

BEATON was at his best when he parted for the last
lime with Alma Leighton, for he saw then that what
had happened to him was the necessary consequence of
Avhat he had been, if not what he had done. Afterward
he lost this clear vision ; he began to deny the fact ; he
drew upon his knowledge of life, and in arguing him
self into a different frame of mind he alleged the case
of different people who had done and been ranch worse
things than he, and yet no such disagreeable conse
quence had befallen them. Then he saw that it was
all the work of blind chance, and he said to himself
that it was this that made him desperate, and willing
to call evil his good, and to take his own wherever he
could find it. There was a great deal that was literary
and factitious and tawdry in the mood in which he
went to see Christine Dryfoos, the night when the
Marches sat talking their prospects over; and nothing
that was decided in his purpose. He knew what the
drift of his mind was, but he had always preferred to
let chance determine his events, and now since chance
had played him such an ill turn with Alma, he left it
the whole responsibility. 2s"ot in terms, but in effect,
this was his thought as he walked on up-town to pay
the first of the visits which Dryfoos had practically
invited him to resume. He had an insolent satisfaction
in having delayed it so long; if he was going back he
was going back on his own conditions, and these were

56G

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

to be as hard and humiliating as he could make them.
But this intention again was inchoate, floating, the
stuff of an intention, rather than intention; an ex
pression of temperament chiefly.

He had been expected before that. Christine had
got out of Mela that her father had been at Beaton's
studio, and then she had gone at the old man and got
from him every smallest fact of the interview there.
She had flung back in his teeth the good-will toward
herself with which he had gone to Beaton. She was
furious with shame and resentment; she told him he
had made bad worse, that he had made a fool of him
self to no end ; she spared neither his age nor his grief-
broken spirit, in which his will could not rise against
hers. She filled the house with her rage, screaming it
out upon him; but when her fury was once spent, she
began to have some hopes from what her father had
done. She no longer kept her bed; every evening she
dressed herself in the dress Beaton admired the most,
and sat up till a certain hour to receive him. She had
fixed a day in her own mind before which, if he came,
she would forgive him all he had made her suffer: the
mortification, the suspense, the despair. Beyond this,
she had the purpose of making her father go to Europe ;
she felt that she could no longer live in America, with
the double disgrace that had been put upon her.

Beaton rang, and while the servant was coming the
insolent caprice seized him to ask for the young ladies
instead of the old man, as he had supposed of course
he should do. The maid who answered the bell, in the
place of the reluctant Irishman of other days, had all
his hesitation in admitting that the young ladies were
at home.

He found Mela in the drawing-room. At sight of
him she looked scared ; but she seemed to be reassured

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

by his calm. He asked if he was not to have the pleas
ure of seeing Miss Dryfoos, too; and Mela said she
reckoned the girl had gone up-stairs to tell her. Mela
was in black, and Beaton noted how well the solid sable
became her rich red-blonde beauty: he wondered what
the effect would be with Christine.

But she, when she appeared, was not in mourning.
He fancied that she wore the lustrous black silk, with
the breadths of white Venetian lace about the neck
which he had praised, because he praised it. Her
cheeks burned with a Jacqueminot crimson; what
should be white in her face was chalky white. She
carried a plumed ostrich fan, black and soft, and after
giving him her hand, sat down and waved it to and fro
slowly, as he remembered her doing the night they first
met. She had no ideas, except such as related intimate
ly to herself, and she had no gabble, like Mela; and
she let him talk. It was past the day when she prom
ised herself she would forgive him; but as he talked
on she felt all her passion for him revive, and the
conflict of desires, the desire to hate, the desire to love,
made a dizzying whirl in her brain. She looked at him,
half doubting whether he was really there or not. He
had never looked so handsome, with his dreamy eyes
floating under his heavy overhanging hair, and his
pointed brown beard defined against his lustrous shirt-
front. His mellowly modulated, mysterious voice lull
ed her; when Mela made an errand out of the room,
and Beaton crossed to her and sat down by her, she
shivered.

" Are you cold ?" he asked, and she felt the cruel
mockery and exultant consciousness of power in his
tone, as perhaps a wild thing feels captivity in the
voice of its keeper. But now, she said she would stil]
forgive him if he asked her.

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A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

Mela came back, and the talk fell again to the former
level; but Beaton had not said anything that really
meant what she wished, and she saw that he intended
to say nothing. Her heart began to burn like a fire in
her breast.

" You been tellun' him about our goun' to Europe ?"
Mela asked.

" No/' said Christine, briefly, and looking at the fan
spread out on her lap.

Beaton asked when; and then he rose, and said if
it was so soon, he supposed he should not see them
again, unless he saw them in Paris; he might very
likely run over during the summer. He said to him
self that he had given it a fair trial with Christine, and
he could not make it go.

Christine rose, with a kind of gasp, and mechanical
ly followed him to the door of the drawing-room ; Mela
came, too; and while he was putting on his overcoat,
she gurgled and bubbled in good-humor with all the
world. Christine stood looking at him, and thinking
how still handsomer he was in his overcoat; and that
fire burned fiercer in her. She felt him more than life
to her and knew him lost, and the frenzy that makes a
woman kill the man she loves, or fling vitriol to destroy
the beauty she cannot have for all hers, possessed her
lawless soul. He gave his hand to Mela, and said, in
his wind-harp stop, " Good-bye."

As he put out his hand to Christine, she pushed it-
aside with a scream of rage ; she flashed at him, and
with both hands made a feline pass at the face he bent
toward her. He sprang back, and after an instant of
stupefaction he pulled open the door behind him and
ran out into the street.

" Well, Christine Dryfoos !" said Mela. " Spag at

him like a wild-cat !"

569

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

" I don't care," Christine shrieked. " I'll tear his
eves out !" She flew up-stairs to her own room, and
left the burden of the explanation to Mela, who did
it justice.

Beaton found himself, he did not know how, in his
studio, reeking with perspiration and breathless. He
must almost have run. Pie struck a match with a
shaking hand, and looked at his face in the glass. He
expected to see the bleeding marks of her nails on his
cheeks, but he could see nothing. He grovelled in
wardly ; it was all so low and coarse and vulgar ; it was
all so just and apt to his deserts.

There was a pistol among the dusty bric-a-brac on
the mantel which he had kept loaded to fire at a cat
in the area. He took it and sat looking into the muz
zle, wishing it might go off by accident and kill him.
It slipped through his hand and struck the floor, and
there was a report ; he sprang into the air, feeling that
he had been shot. But he found himself still alive,
with only a burning line along his cheek, such as one
of Christine's finger-nails might have left.

He laughed with cynical recognition of the fact that
he had got his punishment in the right way, and that
his case was not to be dignified into tragedy.

XVIII

THE Marches, with Fulkerson, went to see the Dry-
fooses off on the French steamer. There was no longer
any business obligation on them to be civil, and there
was greater kindness for that reason in the attention
they offered. Every Other Week had been made over
to the joint ownership of March and Fulkerson, and
the details arranged with a hardness on Dryfoos's side
which certainly left Mrs. March with a sense of his
incomplete regeneration. Yet when she saw him there
on the steamer, she pitied him; he looked wearied and
bewildered; even his wife, with her twitching head,
and her prophecies of evil, croaked hoarsely out, while
she clung to Mrs. March's hand where they sat together
till the leave-takers were ordered ashore, was less pa
thetic. Mela was looking after both of them, and try
ing to cheer them in a joyful excitement. " I tell
'em it's goun' to add ten years to both their lives," she
said. " The voyage '11 do their healths good ; and then,
we're gittun' away from that miser'ble pack o' servants
that was eatun' us up, there in ^Tew York. I hate the
place !" she said, as if they had already left it. " Yes,
Mrs. Mandel's goun', too," she added, following the
direction of Mrs. March's eyes where they noted Mrs.
Mandel speaking to Christine on the other side of the
cabin. " Her and Christine had a kind of a spat, and
she was goun' to leave, but here only the other day
Christine offered to make it up with her, and now

571

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

they're as thick as thieves. Well, I reckon we couMiM
very well 'a' got along without her. She's about the
only one that speaks French in this family."

Mrs. March's eyes still dwelt upon Christine's face ;
it was full of a furtive wildness. She seemed to be
keeping a watch to prevent herself from looking as if
she were looking for some one. " Do you know," Mrs.
March said to her husband as they jingled along home
ward in the Christopher Street bob-tail car, " I thought
she was in love with that detestable Mr. Beaton of
yours at one time; and that he was amusing himself
with her."

" I can bear a good deal, Isabel," said March, " but
I wish you wouldn't attribute Beaton to me. He's the
invention of that Mr. Fnlkerson of yours."

" Well, at any rate, I hope, now, you'll both get rid
of him, in the reforms you're going to carry out."

These reforms were for a greater economy in the
management of Every Other W-eek; but in their very
nature they could not include the suppression of Bea
ton. He had always shown himself capable and loyal
to the interests of the magazine, and both the new
owners were glad to keep him. He was glad to stay,
though he made a gruff pretence of indifference, when
they came to look over the new arrangement with him.
In his heart he knew that he was a fraud ; but at least
he could say to himself with truth that he had not now
the shame of taking Dryfoos's money.

March and Fulkerson retrenched at several points
where it had seemed indispensable to spend, as long
as they were not spending their own : that was only
human. Fulkerson absorbed Conrad's department into
his, and March found that he could dispense with
Kendricks in the place of assistant which he had late
ly filled since Fulkerson had decided that March \v;is

572

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

overworked. They reduced the number of illustrated
articles, and they systematized the payment of con
tributors strictly according to the sales of each number,
on their original plan of co-operation: they had got to
paying rather lavishly for material without reference
to the sales.

Fulkerson took a little time to get married, and went
on his wedding journey out to Niagara, and down the
St. Lawrence to Quebec over the line of travel that the
Marches had taken on their wedding journey, lie had
the pleasure of going from Montreal to Quebec on the
same boat on which he first met March.

They have continued very good friends, and their
wives are almost without the rivalry that usually em
bitters the wives of partners. At first Mrs. March did
not like Mrs. Fulkerson's speaking of her husband a?
the Ownah, and March as the Edito' ; but it appeared
that this was only a convenient method of recognizing
the predominant quality in each, and was meant neither
to affirm nor to deny anything. Colonel Woodburn
offered as his contribution to the celebration of the co
partnership, which Fulkerson could not be prevented
from dedicating with a little dinner, the story of Ful-
kerson's magnanimous behavior in regard to Dryfoos
at that crucial moment when it was a question whether
he shouM give up Dryfoos or give up March. Fulker-
son winced at it ; but Mrs. March told her husband that
now, whatever happened, she should never have any
misgivings of Fulkerson again; and she asked him if
he did not think he ought to apologize to him for the
doubts with which he had once inspired her. March
said that he did not think so.

The Fulkersons spent the summer at a seaside hotel
in easy reach of the city; but they returned early to
Mrs. Leighton's, with whom they are to board till

573

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

spring, when they are going to fit up ' Fulkerson's
bachelor apartment for housekeeping. Mrs. March,
with her Boston scruple, thinks it will be odd, living
over the Every Oilier Week offices; but there will be
a separate street entrance to the apartment; and be
sides, in New York you may do anything.

The future of the Leightons promises no immediate
change. Kendricks goes there a good deal to see the
Fulkersons, and Mrs. Fulkerson says he comes to see
Alma. He has seemed taken with her ever since he
first met her at Dryfoos's, the day of Lindau's funeral,
and though Fulkerson objects to dating a fancy of that
kind from an occasion of that kind, he justly argues
with March that there can be no harm in it, and that
we are liable to be struck by lightning any time. In
the mean while there is no proof that Alma returns
Kendricks's interest, if he feels any. She has got a
little bit of color into the fall exhibition; but the fall
exhibition is never so good as the spring exhibition.
Wetmore is rather sorry she has succeeded in this,
though he promoted her success. He says her real
hope is in black and white, and it is a pity for her to
lose sight of her original aim of drawing for illus
tration.

News has come from Paris of the engagement of
Christine Dryfoos. There the Dryfooses met with the
success denied them in Xew York; many American
plutocrats must await their apotheosis in Europe, where
society has them, as it were, in a translation. Shortly
after their arrival they were celebrated in the news
papers as the first millionaire American family of
natural-gas extraction who had arrived in the capital
of civilization; and at a French watering-place Chris
tine encountered her fate — a nobleman full of present
debts and of duels in the past, Fulkerson says the old

574

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

man can manage the debtor, and Christine can look out
for the duellist. u They say those fellows generally
whip their wives. He'd better not try it with Chris
tine, I reckon, unless he's practised with a panther."

One day, shortly after their return to town in the
autumn from the brief summer outing they permitted
themselves, the Marches met Margaret Vance. At first
they did not know her in the dress of the sisterhood
which she wore ; but she smiled joyfully, almost gayly,
on seeing them, and though she hurried by with the
sister who accompanied her, and did not stay to speak,
they felt that the peace that passcth understanding had
looked at them from her eyes.

" Well, she is at rest, there can't be any doubt of
that," he said, as he glanced round at the drifting black
robe which followed her free, nun-like walk.

" Yes, now she can do all the good she likes," sighed
his wife. " I wonder — I wonder if she ever told his
father about her talk with poor Conrad that day he
was shot ?"

" I don't know. I don't care. In any event, it would
be right. She did nothing wrong. If she unwittingly
sent him to his death, she sent him to die for God's
sake, for man's sake."

" Yes— yes. But still-

" Well, we must trust that look of hers."

THE END

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